Cyber Six
by Kirbilius Clausius
Summary: Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler has gotten to know an entire circle of friends. What will happen when they get to know the real person that they have welcomed into their hearts? And could they meet that responsibility it they tried? 5.12, 1.13
1. Night Terrors

1

Knocks sounded on Penny's door. Penny went through the patterns of knocks she knew and thought she could discern Amy. But it was despondent, sadder...

Penny opened the door and did discover despondent Amy Farrah Fowler. "Hey, Amy. What's up?"

Amy adjusted the duffel bag she carried. "Hello, bes...Penny. May I can come. In. May I come in?"

Penny stepped aside. "Sure. Come in."

"I'm sorry.", Amy told her. "I haven't been able to sleep these past few nights.

"That's sort of the reason I'm here."

"What's the trouble?", Penny sat on her couch and patted the seat next to her.

Amy sat down and shifted her duffel bag. She looked at Penny and obviously lost her nerve again. "Aren't you going to make tea? When a guest is in distress a warm libation is a non-social obligation."

"You sure you don't want to talk about it?", Penny asked.

Amy turned to her again. "My throat is dry.

"And I'm losing core body temperature at, coincidentally, an equal number of joules to a warm beverage."

Penny was about to sigh but thought again and merely patted Amy's thigh. She went through the motions of bringing the neurosurgeon a cup of tea and tapped the empty glass with a bottle of red wine.

"Penny.", Amy began. "I need for you to not be mad over what I am about to ask. Say. Hmmm...Ask."

Penny nearly balked but tried to be sympathetic. Then she tugged her at her neck line.

"That's why I need you to not be mad.", Amy told her. "I am not believing I am taking...I believe I'm not taking advantage of your beauty with what I'm about to ask. But I can see why you'd think that. Please, bestie?"

Penny took the cup and poured herself a sip of wine. One swig later, "Alright. Hit me."

"I need you to sleep with me."

Penny jumped up.

"No!", Amy assured. "I mean...sleep with me. It's my night terrors. They've been getting worse. I haven't been able to achieve a full R.E.M. for at least a week. I'm losin' it, man."

She took a steadying breath. "I want you to let me stay with you in your bed. I'm hoping the added comfort and feelings of safety will help."

"Amy, we talked about this.", Penny told her. "You're...kind of a biter."

"But you're so delectable.", Amy replied. "Sorry! Sorry.

"I know it is an imposition. But I think this is the optimal solution."

Penny huffed, then pointed at the door as if to point through it. "What about Sheldon? Can't you go sleep with him?"

"Oh, that would be nice.", Amy replied wistfully. "But he just notarized our Relationship Agreement. If I confront him with this now, given his mysophobia, kainotophobia, automysophobia/"

"I get it, I get it.", Penny admitted.

Amy put her head in her hands. "Oh, I shouldn't have asked. I don't want to lose him by asking this of him before he's ready. But I don't want to lose you by making you uncomfortable either. I don't want to lose anyone. But now that I really need you all, I'm doing the one thing that'll drive you away."

Penny's expression softened.

"I apologize for coming.", Amy told her. "I try will home at...I will try again at home. Perhaps insomnia only comes in sevens."

"You don't have to go.", Penny told her. "God. Look, I'm going out on a limb here but"

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you", Amy chanted repeatedly as she jumped up and down.

"But!", Penny pointed her finger in Amy's face. "Just sleeping. This isn't a ritual for Bernadette or whatever else you may have told yourself."

"Of course not, bestie, I swear!", Amy assured.

The woman dragged a set of pajamas out of her duffel bag. "I really mean it. I even got you these."

"Why?", Penny asked.

"The problem I'm hoping to overcome is insomnia.", Amy told her. "Do you think I would get a wink laying next to that body?"

2

Penny was on her back in her bed. Amy lie on her side, staring adoringly.

"Are the pajamas comfy?", Amy asked.

"Yes."

"Do you need a glass of water?", Amy asked.

"No."

"I brought chemical sleeping aids.", Amy stated. "Did you want me to drug you into unconsciousness? I brought the good stuff from the lab that we use on the bonobos when they get too/"

"I'm fine, Amy.", Penny told her.

"Okay.", Amy conceded.

"Look.", Penny commanded. "You said you came over to sleep."

Amy put her finger over Penny's lips. "Say no more."

Amy turned one eighty and closed her eyes. "Penny."

"Yes, Amy?"

Penny felt Amy's hand scratching at her new flannels. "Are my nails dull?"

"Why do ask?", she replied.

"Because I'm probably going to scratch you up something fierce.", Amy assured.

"Aimeee...", Penny whined.

"I brought enough first aid supplies for a pee wee baseball team.", Amy told her. "But, if it's not too much to ask, maybe it would be better if you held me?"

"Nghn", Penny mourned. "Fine."

The blonde moved to put her arms around the brunette. "Please don't touch my breasts!", Amy exclaimed.

"I wasn't going to.", Penny deadpanned.

"Well, you are doing me a tremendous favor.", Amy said. "If it's the price I pay, it's the price I pay."

"I wasn't going to cop a feel!", Penny exclaimed.

She shook her head and changed the subject. "Look, you still have your glasses on."

"I do.", Amy acknowledged.

Penny rolled her eyes. "Don't you want to take them off?"

"What are you going to take off?", she returned. "Sorry.

"Just...let me put them over here.", Amy said while placing them on Penny's nightstand.

"Can we try this again?", Amy asked timidly.

Penny nodded even though Amy couldn't see behind her back. She wrapped her arms around Amy.

"You should clutch my wrists, cross ways.", Amy instructed. "That way you'll lose the least blood."

3

Penny was still wide awake when Amy had started to thrash. It took a lot, a whole lot, of her strength to keep Amy's busy little fingernails from being the business ends of some frighteningly strong arms. She had to use all of her reflexes to keep away from Amy's gnashing teeth. She tried her best to rub her cheek against Amy's hair, but it did not seem to have any affect.

Then the rantings started. "The werewolf woman can't have Meridian. Snap out of it, Lucas.

"The gargoyles are combining their wind. Take cover.

"But, but, what am I supposed to do? She stares at me in class. I don't think she wants me to teach what I am and I don't want to teach what she wants."

Penny swore up and down but stuck through it. She knew she was going to have to do things she did not understand to be friends with these...you know, this is a lot of work so I get to use it-nerds. But they care about her. They really do. So time to pay it back.

Amy bucked and Penny's head bounced against her head board. "Ow!"

4

Light streamed through Penny's window, waking her. She cracked her eyes and the pattern of it told that it was probably early enough to get in a run and a donut. Her eyes continued to open and that is when she spotted the wine bottle and tea cup.

Her eyes snapped shut. "Oh no.", Penny lamented.

She tentatively poked behind her and found a warm body. "Oh no.", she repeated. "Please don't let it be Howard.", she prayed.

The body started to move. The waitress decided to deal with it like tearing off a band-aid. "Whoever you are, just tell me your name."

A faintly masculine voice stated, "Ad..." and then stopped. Penny heard a shuffling.

"It's me, bestie.", Amy told her.

Penny's eyes leapt open in fright. Her hand snatched the wine bottle. "It's nearly full.", Penny wondered to herself in horror.

"Oh what have I done?"

Amy furrowed her brow over her glasses. "You helped me get a few scant hours of sleep, finally."

Penny lie motionless for a brief moment. "Right. Your insomnia. Oh, thank God."

Penny sat up. "So how did you sleep?"

Amy sat up. "I don't know. Ask me a question."

"Uh...who are the brothers on the Brady Bunch?"

"Never watched it."

"What's your favorite Black Eyed Peas song?"

"Never listened to them."

"Who took you to your first dance?"

"Never went to...no, that's an automatic answer. Sheldon, Bernadette, you and a Korean cab driver did.", Amy replied.

"I think it worked, Penny.", Amy stated.

She turned elated to her best friend. Then she saw what she had done. "You're cut, Penny."

Penny glanced at her torn pajama sleeve and the small nicks on her hands and arm. She rubbed a hand across her neck and only felt bruised on the ear lobe she had pressed into Amy's head. "No, I'm all right. It's nothing like the burn from trying to hold you down. You can really give a girl a workout."

"I am so sorry.", Amy told her. "I can massage those cramps out. And then we'll shower and I'll wash your cuts and smear ointment all over your/"

"Amy!" Penny called her attention forcefully.

"Right.", Amy nodded. "I'll just shower and make my way to work. You sure you don't need anything? Breakfast, a bath, a bill paid, to be born again, something that begins with a 'b'?"

Penny rolled her eyes directly at her friend. "You know, you could tell me what that tattoo says."

Amy nodded so hard she bowed. "Right, right, I'm going."

The neuroscientist got out of the bed and immediately went for her dufflebag.

Clutching it uncomfortably in front of her, she turned to Penny. It was nearly as if she was trying to hide behind it. "Penny?"

"Yes, Amy?", Penny said.

"Thank you. You didn't have to help and you did. No one has helped me like this before. So, you know...thanks."

"You were very welcome.", Penny replied.

Amy nodded and then proceeded to the bathroom.

"Was.", Penny said mostly to herself. She laid back in the bed and landed on one of her cuts. "ow."


	2. Sheldon Steps Up

1

Penny opened the door to the guy's apartment across the hall from her own. Halo night seemed to be a near party, with so many players that Raj was sitting on the floor in front of the television. Then she noticed only four were playing. Howard whipped his controller from side to side, nearly spilling him out of his chair, as if that was going to help next to Bernadette on his end of the couch. Amy sat next to Sheldon who was in his usual spot with thumbs blurring and little other motion. Leonard was in his usual chair only his playing was cumbersome with Leslie Winkle lounging in his lap.

The waitress was certain Leslie's presence should be the weirdest thing in this picture. Then she realized. "What are you guys wearing on your arms?" "Our garters.", Bernadette stated cheerfully. At Penny's shocked expression, she continued. "Knight errants used to compete at jousting events with their lady's-in-waiting colors adorning their armor. Apparently, this is an idea they've wanted to try for the past decade but this is the only time where the majority of them were pair bonded."

"I thought it was stupid.", Leslie announced. "But if I can get my boy toy to assemble my new desk so I can sleep in on Saturday, sure."

"Well, I think it's romantic.", Howard announced. He leaned over to nuzzle with Bernadette.

With her leaving some of her weight on him while they touched faces, the engineer whipped his head up and started yelling. Leaving the blonde in a lerch, he shouted. "Hey, you think a guy turning to his fiance would deserve not being shot in the back!"

"Pootinanni pursuers pay prices, punk.", Raj said after a swig of beer.

"You wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway, Howard.", Leonard consoled. "He's got the x-ray rail gun and is just sniping everyone through the walls."

Penny felt like she was being trapped in confusion, one step at a time. Like she would not notice it until it was too late. "There isn't any x-ray rail gun in Halo."

"We're playing a vastly superior game to mere Halo, Penny.", Sheldon elucidated.

"Here we go.", Howard lamented.

"Despite your impressive inability to not observe the wires or the on screen graphics informing you of such, we are playing Rareware's Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64. It is the spiritual successor to, if Wolfenstien 3D can be said to be the first to crawl out of the primordial ooze and Doom to be the grandmother, the god father of all first person shooters...Goldeneye."

"Also designed by Rareware in it's final golden age."

"Superior level design, innovative weaponry such as the afore mentioned Farsight as well as the Laptop Gun, and a veritable cavalcade of enhancements make Perfect Dark a grander experience."

Penny raised an eyebrow. "And that's enough to get you out of your obsessive compulsive schedule?"

Sheldon pursed his lips. "Yes.

"And that so many of us have significant others that retrogame Friday has a high probability of being cancelled."

"Whoop for you.", Raj caterwhalled.

A piece of cloth bounced off the top of his head and landed on his controller. "Quit your bitchin'.", Penny told him.

"This is a hair band.", Raj observed. "This is a very poor excuse for a garter. I would think that even a waitress would be able to afford such a basic piece of lingerie."

"You know what/"

"I mean, 'Thank you Penny.'", Raj stated once the threat in her voice got through his psychosomatic inebriation. He quickly rolled the hair band up his arm.

"And how are you doing, Amy?", Penny asked. She noticed that a duffel bag just like the one Amy had brought to her apartment the night before was behind the couch.

"Respiring at a pace that maintains my rate of distributing nutrients to the all too biological components of my body.", the woman replied sullenly.

"Yes!", Sheldon exclaimed jubilantly. "Who's got one quarter the R.A.M., a full clip and two thumbs? This guy."

Amy did not respond.

Penny did not like. "Sheldon, you remembered when you promised to teach me comic books?", she declared.

Penny was already in motion when he objected. "But I won. That gives me right of map choice. Ow!"

Penny dragged him to his bedroom by his ear.

2

"Don't make me punch you.", Penny hissed.

"Whatever did I do?", Sheldon replied.

"Did you see Amy out there?", she countered.

"Of course.", Sheldon assured. "As I've explained to you many times, my spot is perfectly situated to"

Penny drew back her arm and formed a fist. Sheldon scrunched away. "What?"

"If you had the empathy God gave a dog, you'd see that she's in real trouble.", she explained.

Sheldon shrugged, completely confused. "I'd also go around licking people's faces and sniffing their crotches. I've never been a fan of either behavior. Ow!"

Penny pulled her fist back. "She's your girlfriend. Step up!"

"I have no idea as to what you mean.", Sheldon told her honestly.

"I don't care.", Penny told him.

1

The two returned to the common area of the apartment. Sheldon stood at the top of the step to the main floor. Instead of pretending to be overlord of his inferiors as he usually did in such pauses, he regarded Amy. Her sweater was not any less frumpy or less colorful or mislaundered. Her glasses were well maintained. Even her position on the couch, adjacent to his spot, seemed reasonable and...well, usual.

The genius thought for a moment.

"Amy?", Sheldon called.

His girlfriend listlessly raised her gaze to him to await further information.

"I would very much like you to examine my trade paperback of the Uncanny X-men: Dark Pheonix Saga right now.", he explained.

"You know that I find comic books, and your habit for them, lame.", she told him.

"The Relationship Agreement has provisions for inconsequential inconveniences and favors.", Sheldon gently continued.

"Very well.", Amy told him. She quietly rose from the couch and followed Sheldon into his room.

"Well, there goes our fourth.", Leonard stated.

Penny looked at Leonard. Well, really, she looked at the woman in his lap. "You know what, I'll play with you guys. Does this game have a rifle or a shotgun or something else I've actually killed with in real life?"

Leslie rolled her eyes. "Leonard, if we're not going to start having sex in the next five minutes, it wasn't really worth my time to come over here. Keep the garter, it'll serve the same function as a string around your finger to build my desk."

The quantum gravitationalist rose from her position and straightened her clothing while walking out the door. "Call me.", she said/sung and sashayed her hips.

Penny waited a few seconds after the door closed. Stretching dishonestly, Penny declared, "Yeah, it's getting late boys. I'll see you guys next time." Then she left without playing a single game.

"Maybe she would have stayed if we were playing Turok like I suggested.", Raj admonished.

Howard gave him a quick glare before turning to Leonard. "As a man, I would like to congratulate you on being the first one of us to be fought over by two women. Here, here."

Then he took up Bernadette's hand. "As a happily engaged to an intelligent, charming wonderful woman man, I would like to say something else.

"Sucker!"

2

Sheldon held the large graphic novel where the woman sitting next to him on his bed could see, in reading gloved hands.

"Is this a particularly monetarily valuable comic book?", Amy asked.

Sheldon snapped his head toward Amy but before he could berate her, he decided Penny was right. "The original Chris Claremont issues are in my safety deposit box. This is what is called a trade paper back, a reprinting so that the tale may be enjoyed without jeopardizing the originals."

"This story is the end of the long running, high stakes adventure of Jean Grey. She was a young, beautiful and powerful mutant with extraordinary abilities. When the first class of the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and their alter egos, the uncanny X-Men, were formed, the teenagers around her behaved as teens are wont to do. The class clown, an obnoxious Robert 'Bobby' Drake; the rich kid, Warren Worthington; and the arrogant jock, Henry 'Hank' McCoy all attempt to woo her and she spurns them all. Only the dedicated, studious, idealistic Scott Summers sparks her interest and after much stop and start dancing around the subject begin what would become one of the greatest romances of literature.

"He leads her team through numerous adventures all over the world, and eventually into space. Jean Grey saves the entire universe by serving as host to the 'Phoenix Force', a semi-sentient amalgamation of scientific inaccuracies that give her power overwhelming. He stands by her side through trials he can barely glimpse, let alone understand. He supports her regardless through the rigors of her impending godhood, even when the Hellfire Club released her full potential and it drives her to an insane murderous rampage."

Amy leaned against him. "I understand, Sheldon. I will trust you in the future."

Sheldon popped his head up and looked back and forth as if there were some answer that explained what brought the subject off of the X-Men.

"I've been battling with a...termin...with insomnia.", Amy explained. "The only thing that allows me to sleep is being held by someone emotionally close. I am preoccupied with ascertaining who that would be."

Sheldon twitched. Nodding back and forth he shrugged. He brought up a mental reconstruction of the Relationship Agreement and started paging through its imaginary pages with a finger.

With a quick frown he conceded. "There is a boo-boos and ouchies clause. I suppose insomnia is an ailment. Do you have a protocol that you recommend?"

"I don't want to startle you but I have an entire four-dimensional mental image.", Amy answered. "I'll take care of everything, including integration into your nocturnal routine. I'll get my duffel bag. Allow me to pursue your standards for hygiene and costume myself."

Sheldon perked up.

"Not an actual costume, Sheldon.", Amy corrected. "Just pajamas in order to reduce skin to skin contact that would trigger one of your phobias."

Sheldon looked down in disappointment, but then acknowledged the lack of skin exposure as a positive.

3

For(i =0, i=2, i++){

Three knocks. "Penny"

}

The girl in question opened her door to a Dr. Cooper.

"Penny, there's a girl getting ready to join me in my bed.", he told her.

"And?", she asked.

"And I think that it's all your fault.", he continued. "I can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But I have my suspicions."

Penny huffed. "Good night, Sheldon."

"Penny.", he interrupted.

"What?" was the terse reply.

"A construction company has asked me to for an urgent consultation. I had intended to forgo the offer, as the problem is simply a multiple tiered differential statement of a newtonian approximation in a gravity field. The lack of challenge unsettled me.

"However, I have decided to take up the task. I will require a personal assistant to accompany me."

Penny raised an eyebrow. "And I should do this because you think I might have gotten Amy to open up to you?"

"From the fee for the consultation, I will pay you two months of your rent and a standard deviation above the mean of the shoes you showed me in our ill fated foot wear app fiasco in exchange for one evening's work.", he replied.

"I'll do it.", Penny breathed out.

Sheldon nodded. He turned and took two steps toward his door.

"Penny.", he said.

"Yes, Sheldon?", she asked.

He raised his right hand in a now familiar motion. "Live long and prosper."

"Aw...", the girl sighed. "You're welcome."

Sheldon nodded nervously. Then he left to his apartment.

2

Sheldon lay on his back, in his bed, in pajamas and his robe, under his comforter...and Amy Farrah Fowler. Her hands were wrapped in his robe to the point of immobility.

"May I ask you for one more thing?", Amy asked.

"According to grammar, you just did.", he replied.

"May I ask you for two more things?", she continued.

Sheldon raised his eyebrow. "I usually use my bed for sleeping not responding."

Amy raised her eyebrow.

Sheldon nodded. "I'm sorry."

"You should lace your legs around mine from the outside in, in the classical mixed martial arts grapevine maneuver, so that you may greater control my lower muscle spasms. And lace your hands over your forearms around me.", Amy instructed.

"And this will ensure my safety?", Sheldon ascertained.

Amy thought about it another moment. "You'd better give me the tooth guard."

The two looked to his left. The tooth guard was a few inches away. Then they realized how well they organized the tangling of their limbs. Sheldon's eiditic memory served him again with a justification of his ludicrous intention. He bit the tooth guard and raised it to Amy. She opened her mouth and accepted it. He pressed it so that it would fit. Their lips accidentally collided.

Amy took a good look at Sheldon. Sheldon's head retreated into his pillow. "I'm sorry.", she said.

"No, I am.", Sheldon stated. "We're ethnically American. The social paradigm holds that no matter how much this is your fault or how flawless I execute my boyfriend responsibilities, I am to be considered wrong regardless."

Amy smiled, which displayed the tooth guard. "Please don't drool on me.", Sheldon asked. "Or engage in emetophilia, the practice of vomiting on others for sexual pleasure. You only said not to take your subsequent action after previously kissing me as commentary. So I have to hold that you have a history of it."

She closed her lips and nodded. The nueroscientist then settled her face into the nape of Sheldon's neck. He rolled his eyes.

After a breath, he began to sing. "Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur."

"What are you doing?", Amy asked.

"Singing 'Soft Kitty'.", Sheldon replied.

"I don't like that. Please don't do that. It isn't non-optional, I hope.", Amy commanded.

"It's not non-optional, but I don't see why anyone would opt out.", Sheldon declared. "However, you're the one with insomnia."

"Which means I need the most conducive environ for sleep.", Amy pointed out. "That includes quiet, and neither of us can reach your noise cancelling headphones."

Sheldon nodded.

"Besides.", Amy continued. "I couldn't hear your breathing over your singing."

Sheldon nodded again. After a moment's consideration, he took in a deep breath and then blew.

"Don't fake it, Sheldon.", Amy commanded.

"My mistake.", he conceded.

2

Amy was clearly trying to knock him unconscious, Sheldon dearly believed.

"Data 7, get Julian.", she ranted.

"Terra's mud extinguished the blaze."

"Meridiana won't be destroyed today, Jose."

And to think, Leonard actually sought out bed mates. The fool.

2

Sheldon thought he had awoke. Then again, he could not hear or see anything, including his own utterance: "I need a band-aid."

Amy pulled the sleeping mask and headphones off of him. "I already washed, applied Neosporin and a butterfly bandage to your cut.", she informed.

Sheldon reached up and confirmed the split in his forehead.

Amy stepped away from the bed. She was already dressed in the next day's clothing. She turned her back to him and gazed out of the window.

"Thank you for helping me, Sheldon.", the woman monotoned out. "I know that to the most enthusiastic of people, my presence can't be very conducive to a good night's sleep. For someone/"

"Amy.", Sheldon cut her off. From right behind her. If it wasn't for the sunrise, his reflection would have stood out.

"I am not the best...What I mean to say is...Did you sleep well?", he asked.

"Yes, I did.", she assured.

"So my boyfriendly duties have been executed properly?", he continued.

Amy nodded. "Admirably in fact."

Amy was surprised to feel the hand on the back of her left shoulder. She waited patiently as it slid across to her other shoulder. She savored the super evangelical Christian, half-side 'hug' he gave her.

"I'm glad I could help you.", Sheldon said. "I feared I would not be able to serve with valor."

"I disinfected the shower after I used it.", Amy told him. "I'll switch your sheets while you shower."

She heard his robe drop to the floor. "Oh, thank Jeebus.", he declared as he darted from the room.


	3. Encounter

1

The room mates and their two friends sat on opposite sides of the cafeteria table.

"You are in violation of the room mate agreement.", Leonard declared with a smile.

Howard and Raj slowly raised their heads to listen to Sheldon's latest obsessive compulsive rant. Then they realized and whipped their heads to Leonard.

"Really?", Howard asked.

"You always tell yourself to be prepared for days like this, but you never are.", Raj lamented.

Leonard nearly rocked in his chair. "Do you wave reading of the charges?"

"I most certainly do not.", Sheldon assured.

"I was hoping you wouldn't.", Leonard replied.

"On or about yesterday, Dr. Sheldon Lee "Smelly Shelly" Cooper violated the notification of female company rider to the Roomate Agreement. Informing the room mate via e-mail twelve hours in advance or by United States Postal Service three days in advance of any and all nocturnal laisons is necessary. And as you had not, you are formally charged with violation."

Howard and Raj nodded and clapped appreciatively.

"I claim protection under the medical emergency provisions.", Sheldon disputed.

"And did you take Amy to a hospital for immediate medical attention and have the documentation vis-a-vis such an emergency?" Leonard question.

Sheldon glared at Leonard. "You know I did not and do not."

"The strike stands.", the experimental physicist announced.

"Huzzah!", Raj and Howard cheered.

"May it so please the homunculus.", Sheldon harped. "I would like to plead strike served in exchange for an unexpected favor."

"Oh, yeah.", Leonard asked as he folded his arms. "What kind of favor?"

"Penny and myself are going to accept the consultation from the construction firm.", Sheldon stated.

Raj furrowed his brow. "What happened to 'If I wanted to be a roofer, I would have stayed in East Texas.'?"

Leonard pointed as if his points were laid out on the table. "Are you telling me that bringing my ex-girlfriend to a construction site is a favor?"

"Yes.", he stated. "Because she's your ex-girlfriend. Which will keep the apartment free for a romantic interlude with your actual girl friend.

"Am I not understanding the protocol for sequential monogamy?"

Leonard looked kind of sheepish. "No.", he stated sullenly.

Leslie walked up to the group (which, apparently, is the technical term for a group of scientists).

"It never ceases to amaze me that you can never fail to be late to our daily lunching despite working in our department, Dr. Winkle.", Sheldon criticized.

Leslie retorted. "Don't worry. A few more years amongst real scientist and you'll understand the value of allowing an experiment to provide you data instead of pulling things out of your ass, slapping it against a white board and hoping it's brown enough to stick.

"Howard.

"Raj.

"Cuite-pie.", she sung.

"Hey, Leslie.", Leonard replied over the others' waves. "Looks like Sheldon has plans tonight. Do you want to come over?"

"But that takes half the fun out of it, doesn't it?", Leslie objected. "I just love watching him squirm to know people are getting it on so near to him."

"Half? Not just a little but half?", Leonard questioned.

Leslie regarded him. "Oh. Sorry for siding with humor rather than continuing to inflate your ego. It undermines the value of dating a hottie such as myself.

"I will come over. I'll purchase new lingerie and you'll prepare an Italian meal, so we can have a candlelit dinner followed by extremely vocal coitus. Decide on the ambient music and your own dress. It'll help your ego regain some self-esteem.

She turned to Sheldon. "We can sweat up Sheldon's bed and leave used contraceptives around his room."

"Oh, fornicate with any equine desperate enough to convey you."

Leslie stuck out her tongue at Sheldon. Then she turned an half curtsied, half shook her butt at Leonard. "See you, tonight.", she sung.

Howard leaned in. "Screw you and the horse you rode in on?"

"Don't mess with Texas.", Sheldon replied.

2

"So all I'm supposed to do is carry your brief case and wear a hard hat?", Penny asked.

Sheldon looked across the car at his driver. "I'm sorry. Did you want me to delegate more responsibilities? You could help identify the eigen values of individual matrices, or research the tensile vs. sheer coefficients/"

"No, thank you.", Penny cut him off.

"You can run interference with the unionized labor so I can use my superior intellect on the task at hand. I don't want to have to come back tomorrow.", Sheldon stated.

Penny smiled. "Talk to a bunch of cute construction workers now that their day shifts are over. I can do that."

A moment of silence over took them.

"Sheldon, what's the deal with Leslie and Leonard?", she asked.

"I'm afraid I don't understand.", Sheldon replied. "As far as I know, the two of them are both so very loosey-goosey that they never drew up a Relationship Agreement, so there is no 'deal' of which I am aware.

"I don't see how they can live their lives in such chaos."

Penny shook her head. "What I mean is, how did they start back up? Is it serious? That sort of thing."

Sheldon temporarily took his eyes off the road and stomping on his imaginary brake pedal that did nothing in real life but calmed his nerves ever so much. The physicist regarded Penny. "Penny, do you think I have any interest in Leonard or Leslie as a romantic partner?"

The car swerved before Penny regained control. "What? No!"

"Do I ask all sorts of trivial questions about the extaneous data of their relation ship?", he continued.

"No.", Penny answered.

"Puzzling- Wasn't it you that had previously explained to me that empathy was about understanding another person from their own viewpoint.", he observed.

Penny nodded. "I get it Sheldon. If I'm going to be Leonard's friend and not his girl friend, it's none of my business who he sees."

Sheldon furrowed his brow. "That's not the point I was getting at at all. What I meant was that you should stop asking me about things for which I don't care."

3

"Are you sure you don't want me to continue with the meal preparation?", Leslie asked Leonard. "It would make me appear more domestic."

"No, that's alright?", Leonard replied.

"I can strip down to the lingerie and an apron.", Leslie continued.

Leonard dashed a bit more spice into the the spaghetti sauce. "Hm? Oh. No that's okay."

The girl was silent for a moment. "Leonard, what's going on?"

The man half turned. Then he turned off the burners of the stove. "You know, I was going to ask you the same thing."

Leslie nodded. "I can consider your question first. What do you mean 'going on'?"

"I mean, what are we doing?", he continued. "We've done this before. The first time, you used me. The second time you dumped me flat out. Why are we doing this to ourselves?"

He tried to look into Leslie's eyes. By the time he turned around she was down to a babydoll teddy and an apron.

"That's not enough a reason.", Leonard lamented.

Leslie frowned. "Come'er.", she told him.

She got off of her stool and walked around to him and scooped him into her arms. "First, let me start out with that you're a very attractive man for someone who isn't annoyingly stupid. Or at least all of the peer review suggests so: spy seductress, French literary, medical doctor, aspiring actress, krav maga expert, exotic lawyer..."

Leonard shifted his weight. "Okay..."

Leslie continued. "Also, I'm not...I have my flaws. I don't think I'm broken like your room mate. But I do like you Leonard. Every time I've wanted someone, I've wanted you."

"What about Howard?", he asked.

"I was rebelling against my father.", she told him. "It's a long story. But he was a horrible man. Called me by the boy's version of my name all the time when I was growing up."

"Your name is Leslie."

"Which is a pretty girl's name", she informed.

"Okay.", he conceded.

She continued. "What do you want?"

Leonard considered the question.

Leslie pressed on. "I'm serious. Do you want someone as...well, as pushy as me? Are you just lonely? Are you just doing what I say, because someone's telling you to do it?"

"If you listened in on one of my mother and I's conversations, you could see how that is.", Leonard told her. "But no.

"No, I do enjoy the time we spend together. It's just like now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Do you want a commitment from me?", Leslie asked honestly.

"What?", Leonard objected. "No, not at all."

"Leonard, your pulse just jumped and you're about to sweat through your shirt.", she smiled comfortingly.

"Well...do you want a commitment?", he asked.

Leslie looked into his eyes. "I understand that you're in demand. I understand that you're a sweet guy. And you're what I need. And I'm self aware enough to understand that's probably not the order I should have told you that in.

"I want you in more than just carnal ways.", she deadpanned.

"And I understand that you're looking for security. You need security about as much as Sheldon needs control. I'm nearly at a point in my life where I can settle down. The whirlwind life of a quantum gravitationalist will slow down and I'll be able to be there for you like you need."

Leonard's eyebrows rose. "You're going to get tenure?"

Leslie deadpanned. "Yes, Leonard. I was talking shop when I was trying to be sensitive about your concerns over our relationship."

"Because they didn't offer me tenure.", Leonard continued softly.

She kissed him. At first it was to keep his mind on track. Then it turned into something else. Defining it would take time...and that honestly scared her.

"Alright, that was scary.", she told him. "But I'm willing to stay so we can figure it out what it meant and how we can build on it. Is that enough?"

The man slowly nodded.

"Good.", Leslie concluded. "Now nut up and take me."

"Please don't carry me to bed again.", he asked.

"I think it would be more feminine for you to carry me.", she replied.

Leonard's face fell. "I don't have the upper body strength to support things that increase my arms rotational inertia unsecured."

Leslie kissed him again and locked her arms around his neck, then her legs around his waist.

"This'll work.", Leonard declared.

4

"Oh my lord, what in the sweet hell happened here?", Sheldon asked himself. He and Penny were still walking up to the construction site. While Penny was attempting a business casual that included pants and boots, Sheldon dressed normally. The two both wore hard hats that read, unsprisingly "Sheldon Enterprises, Inc.".

"Sheldon, focus.", she asked trying to draw his attention from the skeleton of steel girders he was looking at.

"Hm?", he acknowledged.

Penny glared at him. "I don't know anything about skyscrapers or physics. Are you certain that there isn't anything else that I'm supposed to do here besides keeping people from talking to you."

"Well I may start to have a panic attack from the grimy conditions we are about to enter. However, my brief case includes an exhaustive catalog of cleansing supplies, an array of first aid equipment and a comforting blanky.", Sheldon assured.

"You mean you don't even have a calculator in here! Or any thing to measure...you know, sciency stuff with.", Penny remarked. "Sheldon, how are you going to do the job you're being paid to do?"

"You didn't end your sentence on a preposition. Nicely done. You can have a chocolate from the briefcase, but just one.", Sheldon congradulated.

"I'm serious, Sheldon Cooper.", she made her point.

Sheldon gave her a derisive expression. "Penny, I am perpetually armed with one of the greatest tools on the planet: my mind. I have an eidetic memory which outstrips the utility of any supplementary storage device, processing power that is more agilely allocated than any pseudovariable architecture and more innovative than Thomas Jefferson when he invented the dumb waiter.

"Pun unintended."

Penny glared at him.

"My phone is VPN'd into the university. When we arrive on site, I will be allocated a laptop that can withstand the rigors of a construction site. It, in turn, will be VPN'd into the company's wide area network as well as interface with any appropriate sensors."

Penny let out a breath she had been holding.

"I don't know why you're so wound up. I'm the one slowing my mind to the speed of current information technology by using excess processing power to redesign my model train rail.", Sheldon objected. "Oh, we're here."

Sheldon looked at the plank of wood that served as the door to the hastily constructed fence. "Penny, this door is dirty."

She smiled grimly. "I'll see what we have here."

She found a few pairs of latex gloves in the briefcase and helped him put a pair on. He smiled his thanks and then turned back to the door.

"Well?", she asked.

"The door is still dirty.", he told her.

"That's why I gave you the gloves.", she reminded.

"Oh. I had thought you would just open the door rather than go through all that.", he supposed.

Penny rolled her eyes as she pulled open the door. Once they were through the gate, their gaze turned skyward. Penny only saw girders of steel reach up toward the heavens with concrete floors stacking vertically. Sheldon saw the first symptoms of the problem.

"I arrived just in time.", he stated before clicking his tongue.

A man spotted them and came up to them. "Hey, you two can't be in here."

"He's talking to me, Penny.", Sheldon informed. "Stop lollygagging."

Penny was about to give him a derisive glance but reminded herself that this was a customer...maybe. "Hi.", she began. "This is Dr. Sheldon Cooper, the consultant your company requested. I'm his personal assistant. Just call me, Penny. And you are?"

"I'm glad you could make it.", the man said. "The money men and all our egg heads are losing it. We had"

"A parabolic, half-saddle shift in the structural stress on this side of the building large enough to slip a dime through.", Sheldon spoke mostly to himself.

The man shook his head. "No, it's just a tilt."

"Penny?", Sheldon said curtly.

Penny leaned in between the man and Sheldon. "He's doing, you know, his beautiful mind thing. Maybe you could direct your questions toward me? We wouldn't want to disrupt his concentration."

"Penny, tell him that instead of just relying on a radar reflection from the corner pillars, he should have someone test the entirety of this side. Then start stress testing random I-beams from their top floor to mid-way down. They should find that the anomaly meets my description. I'll need as an exact a report of the variance that you can afford me.", Sheldon continued.

She turned back to the man.

He nodded, "I'll...". Then he turned away from Sheldon to Penny. "I'll get a guy right on it."

"Be sure to thank him." Sheldon said while continuing to let his gaze wander over the structure. "We wouldn't want to be rude."

Penny smiled thinly at the man. "Don't worry. Our IT guys are the same way. Like they never saw dirt before."

When the man left, Penny caught up to Sheldon. "You should have informed him that their IT guys are not 'the same way' as a theoretical physicist on a trajectory that includes the Nobel Prize and an Icee on our way home."

Penny crossed her arms. "So...Tell me what you're thinking."

Sheldon glared at her again with more condescension than usual. "I meant about what's wrong with the building. What do you think?"

"Oh.", Sheldon acknowledged. "They probably think they had an undisclosed earthquake and their foundation buckled. That in turn would have stressed the building along a wave function leaving it curved along a cylindrical axis. Such an event would require them demolishing the existing edifice and relaying the foundation after another seismic survey to meet any earthquake standard their client and insurer have in their contracts. I'm seeing all the signs of a collision but the force to pressure ratio to trigger/"

"Sheldon?", Penny pleaded.

He looked down on her from his height. He harrumphed and stuck out two hands flatly facing each other, pointing up. "This is how the building is supposed to be."

He tilted his left toward his right and then back away. "With an earthquake a sufficient distance away of minimal strength, these are the possibilities."

Sheldon then curved his right hand toward his left. "If an impact rocked the building, it would be more like this."

He returned to the flat tilt. "This would cost the company anywhere from tens of millions of dollars to scrapping the whole project at this stage of construction."

He cupped his hand again. "This is several hundred thousand dollars of girder inspection and replacement."

Penny nodded. "So if you can prove that the building was hit and not shook, they save a lottery winning."

"Boring isn't it?", Sheldon commiserated. "Finding the lateral origin of the shock wave is now our primary concern."

Sheldon walked off with determination on the unfinished concrete of the first floor. Penny strove to keep up with his long stride.

He stopped suddenly at a steel beam a row inside the opposite wall. He walked around it, sizing it up. Then he tapped it like a crystal glass. His Vulcan hearing told him something remarkable.

"Penny, are there standardized cup sizes for women's buttocks?", he asked.

"What?", she screeched at her 'boss'. "No, Sheldon. There are not."

"Drat.", he cursed. "Then I'll need to use you as a physical comparator."

"No, you're not.", Penny assured.

"Of course, I am.", Sheldon countered. "You're here as my personal assistant. Now lean against this girder and personally assist me."

"Oh.", Penny exclaimed in understanding.

Sheldon narrowed his eyes. "What did you think I meant?"

Penny mumbled embarrassingly and walked to the pillar.

"For whatever reason would I rub your a...buttocks?", Sheldon exclaimed. "You know I have a well known aversion to touching, a doubly indemnified relationship with a woman much smarter than you and would have to console Leonard in logarithmically declining increments for weeks."

"You think Leonard would be upset if I got with someone else? Even though he had Leslie?", Penny asked. "Why didn't you say that when I was asking what the deal with Leonard and Leslie was?"

"Because, as I stated quite clearly earlier, I don't care.", Sheldon cajoled. "Now press yourself against the girder."

Penny stood against the beam. Sheldon gestured and Penny guessed that she should squat a bit. Her only confirmation was Sheldon's slow nod as he gazed at the ceiling. "Please raise your arms in front of you." Penny did as he asked. Sheldon gasped.

Penny stood up. "So do you know what hit it?"

Sheldon shook his head in awe. "I'm reduced to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work. If every alternative that could support all the available evidence turns out to be impossible, then the one remaining explanation, no matter how improbable must be correct."

"So what happened?", Penny prompted.

They were interrupted when the roughly repaired fencing from the side they were on collapsed inward. A black shaped flew past them, prompting Penny to jump away. Sheldon just stared in amazement. The shape turned out to be a feminine figure, clouded in a swirling sea of black, when it bounced off the steel pillar.

"That.", Sheldon said incredulously.

Following the woman was a cross between the Incredible Hulk and Dennis the Menace. The green skinned, blonde haired brute stood at least eight feet tall and was corded with muscle. The...monster(?) ran after the woman.

Until his ankle was bitten into by a panther.

"Sheldon!", Penny yelled at him while yanking on his arm. "We have got to go!"

The black sombrero and, presumably, the woman under it flew past the two with her cape trailing behind her. She collided fist to face with the giant and instantly stopped her flight. She was barely on the ground before she delivered a black clad knee to her opponent's jaw. Using her other foot, she jumped straight up from the behemoth's shoulder, landed on the ceiling feet first and jumped downward. She landed knees first into the giant's head, smashing its face into the concrete floor of the building.

Tiny black, fingerless gloved feminine hands picked up the green man and flung him into the street. After flying a thoroughly inhuman distance while tumbling end over end, a passing car slammed into the creature's head.

Then events took a turn for the rediculous.

The creature disintegrated. Not metaphorically, with the expected plume of gore. It simply wafted away. The red and black striped tee and jeans were carried away by a car that had nothing in front of it. Over the car, a metal capped cylinder of glowing green spun in mid air, as if it was summoned from the monster.

"No.", the sultry voice of the fight's survivor swore. She sprinted in the way a motorcycle in a drag race might. She missed catching the vial by a hand length.

Once the vial shattered, it immediately began to eat through the asphalt. Penny saw the rising smoke and tried harder to drag Sheldon away. He simply walked closer to the sight.

The woman's dark hair hung over her face as she knelt over the still glowing, highly caustic chemical. Sheldon could hear her slurping...drinking the burning liquid from the open street. The panther held her cape between its teeth and tried to pull her away from her snack.

Before Sheldon could reach the edge of the sidewalk, the panther jumped in front of Sheldon and roared. Penny started to panic. "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod", was just chanted repeatedly.

As the liquid reacted away, the sultry voice came forth once again. From under the sombrero and the obscuring hair came a brisk, "Don't come any closer."

"Believe me, lady.", Penny begged. "I am not trying to.

"Sheldon if you don't back off I am going to hog tie you and carry you out of here!"

The woman and the panther turned away and jumped to the sidewalk of the opposite side of the street. The panther clawed its way up a lampost and then jumped from the post to the roof of the building across the street. The woman seemed to glide up the side of the building as if a cast shadow of a passing bird.

Sheldon began to budge once the two were gone.

5

It had been hours since the...whatever it was. The police had interviewed everyone on the work site, Sheldon and Penny doubly so: the only actual witnesses turned out to be them and the car that hit the whatever it was. After the driver and his family independently corroborated Sheldon and Penny's account of the evaporating un-Jolly Green Giant, the officer decided to call in a hazmat team to clear the pot hole that was left by the green liquid.

When their laison came over the make sure they were alright, Sheldon snapped at him. Penny couldn't make sense of anything Sheldon spouted off, but the foreman seemed assured that a mathematical proof the building was repairable even after taking a second shot in the exact same place would be filed with his bosses so that repairs could start as early as the next week.

Penny was rattled, but she still drove the car about as well as she did when coming back from a party. Sheldon sat straight up.

"Are you sure you're alright?", Penny asked. "You got pretty...well, I'd hate to use the word 'weird' but..."

"Wasn't she breathtaking?", Sheldon sought reassurance. "It was like Summer Glau, Zhang Ziyi, Felicia Day and Alyson Hannigan descended from the night and personally performed a trailer for a correctly written Bird's of Prey adaptation."

Penny's confusion showed. "Alyson Hannigan's the one from 'How I Met Your Mother', right?"

"No.", Sheldon objected turning towards her. "From Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

"Of course.", Penny artificially agreed. "How could I make the mistake?"

Sheldon lost none of the wonder from his face or the glamor from his voice. "You're not very bright. Or in possession of an eidetic memory."

Penny ground her teeth. "He's been through a lot tonight.", she whispered.

"Wasn't she breathtaking?", Sheldon asked again.

"Sheldon, tone it down, alright?", Penny told him. "Yes, it was a crazy experience. But maybe you should wipe that dazed grin off your face before you see Amy."

"Whatever for?", he inquired.

Penny rolled her eyes. "Do you really think going all gaga over something that looked like a woman that ate off the street in front of your girlfriend is a good idea."

"Amy and I regularly share our thoughts, it's the fundemental basis for our interactions.", Sheldon objected. "Last week, she showed me how she proved that blood flow and nothing else allowed a tumor to metastasize into a five point star. Why wouldn't she enjoy hearing about this?"

"Jealousy.", Penny told him.

"We're beyond such things.", Sheldon lied.

"I slept with Amy on Tuesday.", she said.

Sheldon spun on her. "She is not for you!", he warned.

Then he caught himself. "Oh darn. How will I tell her?"

**Note: The problem Sheldon consults on in this chapter is a)highly inaccurate b)a civil engineering problem. Ph.D.s, post-docs and even tenured lecturers do sometimes consult for companies when no other person available has the necessary expertise. These tasks can be as short as an afternoon's labor and have astounding payouts. Stay in school kids.**


	4. Huh

1

Sheldon flicked the lights of their apartment to full blast. Penny walked in behind him to the sight of Leslie and Leonard. While he was in his usual sleep wear, Leslie's modesty was protected mostly by an apron and a little by Leonard.

"A breath taking sight, Leonard!", Sheldon announced.

"Not this again.", Penny mourned.

Leslie and Leonard looked at each other. "I thought he hated the sight of you.", Leonard said.

"I certainly thought it was mutual.", she agreed.

"Our very own superheroine.", Sheldon told. "Right here in Pasadena.

"It was a cold and blistery night, under a clear, star filled sky...

Leonard glared his concern at Penny while Sheldon continued to rant. Penny shrugged. "It was actually really weird."

"Wait-a-minute." Leonard took off his glasses. "This happened. We have a masked adventurer?"

"Superheroine.", Sheldon corrected.

Then came Leonard's eye rub. "Remember when you argued with all of us for three days after watching 'The Watchmen'? Real life people who hide their identities in order to do volunteer community improvement should be called masked adventurers because they don't have powers."

"You mean there actually are superheroes?", Penny asked disbelieving.

"Yes.", Leonard answered.

"Like the D.C. Sentinel in Washington, who hides every bit of his identity so that everyone can think he looks like them. He helps the homeless, visits children in hospital things like that: His biggest triumph is giving a child going into chemo a picture of himself and told the kid "I give you some of my power". The little guy made a full recovery.

"Or Phoenix Jones in Seattle. He's stopped upwards of forty felonies in progress. He made his own bullet proof costume, uses only non-lethal weapons and used to be some mixed martial arts guy.

"Don't you remember any of that documentary we watched?"

Penny shook her head then realized. "Oh, that was real? Leonard I was so tired and you were so ramped up that you wouldn't let me go to my apartment. I slept through the entire thing on your shoulder, remember."

Leonard looked up to think of a way out. "He remembers.", Leslie assured.

"But they don't have powers so they aren't super.", he blurted out.

Penny tried to see a memory. "I don't know. She did kinda leap a tall building in a single bound."

"Please, penny. Don't exaggerate.", Sheldon commanded. "It was a medium sized building. And even then, one has to allot for illusory actions and misperceptions due to stress.

"Unless you're me. My eiditic memory can recount the entire event without error.

"Our very own superheroine. Right here in Pasadena. It was a cold and blistery night, under a clear, star filled sky..."

Leonard started to interrupted but Leslie placed a finger over his mouth. He turned to her.

Leslie shrugged. "You know he's just going to attempt to recount it until he's through."

Leonard hung his head.

Sheldon's monologue about the most breath taking woman he had ever seen was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Penny opened it to find Amy. "Hello, bestie. Is all quiet on the Leonard Front?", she greeted.

Amy carried a purse and her duffel bag in to the apartment. Upon seeing Leslie and Leonard, "I guess not."

"Amy, I have the most astounding news.", Sheldon declared.

She walked up to her boy friend. "Alright. I am, metaphorically, all ears."

Sheldon's height allowed him to see over her. Penny and then Leonard (when he realized) dragging their hands over their throat. Leslie chortled.

"What's the problem?", Amy asked. "Am I awaiting a Bazinga?"

"No.", Sheldon stated. "It's just that Penny and Leonard are dragging their hands over their throats. In the past, they have told me that means shut up without questioning.

"Is there any news that might trouble you?"

Amy considered the question. "Does this news include breaking up with me, a violation of Penny's privacy or your taking up interior design instead of physics?"

"What about my privacy?", Leonard objected.

"Meh.", Amy shrugged. "You aren't very interesting, so I doubt a confidence will be betrayed."

Leonard's gaze flipped from the optical physicist dressed in an apron wrapped around him to the aspiring actress he used to sleep with. He gasped with exasperation.

Sheldon nodded. "Our very own superheroine. Right here in Pas/"

Amy's eyes flickered, then she glared in anger. "Are you going to regale me with a tale about another woman as, ahem, 'news'?"

Sheldon's face froze in a deadpanned expression. "Yes?"

Amy set down her bags and crossed her arms. "Describe my physical attributes.", she commanded.

Sheldon scoffed.

"I'm sorry.", Amy warned.

"What?", he asked.

"What planet are you from?", she asked.

"Earth. Also occasionally called Old Earth, Terra and Sol-3.", he replied. "Wait, what?"

"Do they speak English on 'what'?", she continued.

Sheldon shook his head at the nonsensical question. "What?"

"English, Sheldon. Do you speak it?", Amy demanded.

"Yes!", Sheldon stated, working into a panic. "It's my native language."

"So the speech centers of your brain can interpret the auditory impulses induced by my vocal cords in your ears into cognitive relevancy?"

Sheldon nodded. "Yes."

"Do I look like Bernadette?", Amy continued.

"What?", Leonard asked.

"I have a sedative for the extraneously talkative.", Amy warned him.

Before he could utter another word, Leslie stuck her finger in his mouth.

Amy turned back to Sheldon. "Do. I. Look. Like. Bernadette?"

"No.", the frightened man told her.

"So I'm not known for garnering so much male attention that I'm comfortable with my recently acquired boyfriend gushing over another woman?", she concluded.

Only then did Sheldon realize. "So that's what Penny meant in the car."

The sound of three hands slapping their own face.

"Come.", Amy instructed while grabbing his hand. "You are going to engage in an inordinate amount of touching while whispering emotional reassurances."

Sheldon whined as he was dragged to his bedroom.

"If you can't do the time, understand the crime.", Penny called after him.

As Leonard and Leslie made their way to the couch, Amy came back out the room. She flashed them a large grin, two thumbs up and mouthed 'thank you' to Penny before grabbing her purse and bag.

They all watched Amy return to Sheldon's room not knowing exactly what just happened.

Penny then flopped on the couch next to Leonard and Leslie. She looked over Leslie's apron. "So, what's for dinner, doc?"

2

Amy looked over her boyfriend's deer in the head lights expression. She sighed.

"I didn't mean to scare you.", Amy stated. "Believe me, the last thing I want for anyone is to be scared of me. Doubly so for my man."

She took another step away from him and gestured to the physical distance between them. He seemed to calm down some.

"Our jealousy seems to sprout from different psychological causes.", she began. "Because you never talk about your feelings as your feelings, I can only guess that your is based in a lack of control in your childhood. You feel possessive of me. Thank you.

"But mine is one of insecurity. Until very recently, I felt that there would never be anyone interested in me romantically. And like the fable of the fox and sour grapes, I attempted to dismiss the value of such a relationship. Now that I have one, I can be excused for being irrational about the maintaining the only one I've ever had. I...do...have one?"

Sheldon was many things, but the one he would most vehemently point out as false was stupid. "Of course you are in a relationship.", he asserted. "With me.

"I've always held that our unique minds were the underlying basis of that relationship. I had a remarkable experience, that despite her presence, Penny wasn't able to share in. The next thought through my head was mapping the outward crescendo of a lateral shock wave via a three dimensional matrix representing the steel girder structure multiplied by a repeating function representing the added standing forces of the concrete floors. And that was immediately followed by the necessity to share my experiences with you."

"oh.", Amy said. "Hoo.", followed with an immediate hand to her throat accompanying her puzzled expression.

"We can lie down and you can tell me all about it."

"Oh no.", Sheldon stated. "I have to shower and wash the concrete dust, iron particles and other air borne particulates before I avail myself of furniture. Otherwise, they'll embed themselves and scratch me at a cellular level for decades."

Amy went to his closet and pulled out his pajamas and a robe. "Well, hurry. You still have the inordinate amount of touching portion of your penance."

"And this will schedule my shower before and not between that and sleeping.", Sheldon hesitated.

Amy shrugged. "We could shower together, so you could confirm my hygiene."

Sheldon regarded the woman twirling her hair around her fingers.

She slumped her shoulders. "Bazinga.", she uttered disappointed.

2

Later, the two were in sleep wear on his bed. Amy lay in his awkwardly wrapped arms. They were enjoying themselves thoroughly. Amy was creating one of the experiences she had missed out on earlier in life and Sheldon was speaking uninterrupted.

"And the drag of her over sized akubra seemed to not at all impede her ascent up the side of the building.", Sheldon described. "Mm mm mmm. I felt like the clockwork butler of Beauty and Beast watching the magic happen."

"Akubra?", Amy questioned.

Sheldon intoned. "It's an Australian bush hat, noted by it's wide brim."

"It's just that what you described was more akin to a sombrero cordobes, or shadow maker from the Cordoba province of Spain.", Amy objected.

Sheldon looked down at her.

"But what do I know?", Amy enthusiastically asked. "I don't wear hats. I don't know what I'm talking about. Can I suck on your ear lobe?"

"Firstly, no.", Sheldon informed. "Secondly, I was present and you were not. And as someone who does so much more cosplaying than you, I assure you that I know more about haberdashery."

"Already conceded.", Amy admitted.

Sheldon continued. "And thirdly: If I must serve out this tactile affirmation, I would prefer to have my bell rubbed."

Amy turned to him nurturingly. "The alien overlord house pet addendum?"

"You aren't leaving me behind when they come for you.", he assured.

Amy opened his robe and started to pull out his tee shirt. "Let's slow this down a bit.", Sheldon asked.

Amy stalled. "Okay. I can leave your shirt tucked in."

"I mean, close my robe please.", he corrected.

2

Sheldon awoke in the middle of the night. Amy was rubbing his belly absently. "Sorry for waking you.", she told him.

"Alright.", Sheldon acknowledged.

"Can I ask you a second question?", she continued.

"If you could have me look like her, inhuman, would you accept me touching you better?"

"Like?", Sheldon replied. "I don't even understand why society believes other people are supposed to like the activity, let alone myself. Germ Theory, economics, and even haptic developments all verily preach against the practice."

"However, you have been touching me in a way I enjoy, I suppose there is some requirement for reciprocity. Similar to Christmas gifts."

Amy thumped her head against his chest. "Sheldon, I don't want to force you to do things. And don't ask what I would like you to do. I've repeatedly offered to let you ravage me in any manner you could imagine and all the sensual energy you've mustered could fill a 'Who's a good Amy?'."

Sheldon pursed his lips. "I could change topics to something much more comfortable than coitus, how are your night terrors?"

"I had a good evening.", she informed. "I believe that I'm already rested for tomorrow. I don't think that they'll be a problem for some time."

"I see.", he stated neutrally.

"Does this mean that I can no longer invoke 'ouchies and boo boos'?", she asked. "Because I would very, very much like to continue to accompany you tonight."

"Well it is Anything-Can-Go-Thursday.", he replied.

**Note:**** The D.C. Sentinel, Phoenix Jones and approximately 250 other 'superheroes' operate in the United States in real life. Though rare in other**** countries (such as the Samurai Stranger of the United Kingdom) they exist. Not making a judgement on whether or not this is a good or bad thing, just that the practice exists. Trying to maintain the 'real' world of the Big Bang Theory.**


	5. Clue

1

The room mates and their two friends sat on opposite sides of the cafeteria table.

Howard had leaned forward and formed his hands into a pyramid. Raj seemed not only interested, but concerned in what he had to say.

"Let me get this straight.", Howard pleaded. "After a year of condescension and no sex, you decide that complimenting other women on their appearance is the real way to keep a girl."

Howard and Raj looked at each other. They nodded, considering.

Then Howard clutched the table, impassioned. "Are you insane?"

"Of course not.", Sheldon objected. "My mother had me tested."

"Dude!", Raj interrupted. "I'm hopeless around women. Utterly, completely, hopeless. I mean, downed an entire rum cake to muster up the courage talk to an FBI agent. I ended up inviting her and her giant, Navy SEAL husband to a charming cottage in the woods-where he could chop me up and feed me to all the little animals while she assured the government and Indian ambassadors that Rajesh Kuthrapalli never came to America.

"And even I wouldn't do something that stupid."

"Actually, I think that was me.", Leonard interjected.

Raj furrowed his brow. "Are you sure? It sounds like something I would do."

"Hey, if you want to double down on Bumbling Bachelor of the Year...", Leonard shrugged.

Raj snapped at him. "I'm not the dumbass here. He is.", he pointed.

"Ah, my favorite subject.", Leslie stated as she walked up. "Good morning, dumbass.

"Raj.

"Howard.

"Sexy.", she sung to Leonard.

"Why is everyone calling me a dumbass this morning?", Sheldon wondered aloud.

"Habit?", Leonard questioned.

Leslie rolled her eyes as if the answer is obvious. "Did you not regale all who were within ear shot with a tale last night? The particulars of this story were that a mysterious black shape, accompanied by a dangerous and possibly wild animal, murdered a man before your eyes. It had unnatural abilities, drank an unidentified caustic liquid from the street and stormed off screaming 'Leave me alone' like it was the Amazing Hulk."

"Incredible Hulk.", Leonard corrected. "You see it's the Amazing Spider-man and...oh, never mind."

Leslie cast her gaze over him and then continued. "You go around being arrogant, condescending, pompous, and stubborn. So you're an ass. Then, besides your hold to the tenets of an untested hypothesis as theory (i.e String Theory), you declare a murderer to be a superhero because she was 'breathtaking'. Despite the fact that you're so asexual that your girlfriend, if one may call someone serving her contractual obligations that, needs to extort you into hand holding. Which is dumb."

Sheldon gazed out into space. "I hadn't considered that she might be a super _villain_."

"See?", Leslie smiled. "It's like you're some kind of...dumb...ass."

Sheldon narrowed his eyes at her. "Why do you even approach our breakfast table when you so reliably misuse lab equipment to make one?"

Leslie counted on her fingers. "Well, firstly it annoys you. Secondly, while a man being in the presence of a woman he finds attractive reduces his intelligence quotient by up to four percent, the presence tends to elevate heart rate and respiration mimicking some of the benefits of exercise. With Leonard enjoying the view coming and going, a good girlfriend helps whip him into shape by stopping by him but not while he's working.

"If if it's convenient.

"For me."

"I exercise.", Leonard objected. "There's um...paint ball. This Saturday, we are playing paintball."

"Not before you assembled the new desk in my lab.", she reminded.

"It's not even in your apartment?", Leonard asked.

Leslie furrowed her brow. "You know I don't bring men to my apartment."

Howard looked relieved. "So at least you were honest about me being arm candy, and not actually embarrassed by me."

"No.", Leslie denied. "I was lying about you being arm candy. I was with you to get back at my father psychologically."

He held out his arms as if asking what was this before him. "Yeah. I'm a regular leather clad hooligan."

"Wrong again. You're Jewish.", she stated.

Howard threw up his hands in exasperation. "What is your father, a Nazi?"

"And thank you for making me relive those childhood memories.", Leslie retorted. "Do you see why women kick you to the curb?"

"I'm gonna go make breakfast.", she told Leonard.

"Stop by anytime.", she sung.

Rajesh stared after her. "What do you see in that woman?", he asked the group.

"My mother's half condescending, half apathetic yet completely controlling parenting style?", Leonard guessed.

"Out right manipulation through financial punishments and rewards?", Howard guessed.

Sheldon regarded the two. "That's strange. I had thought it was that your desire for coitus outstripped your judgement."

Howard and Leonard snapped their fingers and pointed at each other in acknowledgement.

2

Leonard put a pair of color shifted classes on as he entered Leslie's lab. "Hey, the guys are about to break for lunch in a few. So I'd thought I'd take up your offer to stop by."

"Took you long enough.", she stated. "I was beginning to starve."

"Grab a mask and you can begin by surprising me with breakfast."

Leonard looked at the pair of masks set up, along with the equipment laid out. "What?"

Leslie regarded him. "Not the what thing again.", she lamented.

"No. Of course not.", Leonard assured. Then confusedly, "How would like me to proceed?"

"Well, you can start by flash frying the eggs with the halogen array.", she instructed. "Remember your mask."

Leslie and Leonard picked up a mask and held it over their face when he pressed the button to trigger the flash. It lasted a fraction of a second and he still felt his skin tanning.

"I'll help with the toast.", she told him. Leslie put on what looked like an NES Powerglove and stretched out her arm. A black box moved sporraticaly on the table. She gestured and a bright red beam bit into a loaf of bread. She pressed down and the beam sawed through the loaf, leaving a fresh golden brown. The optical physicist carried on cleaving through the loaf by gesturing.

"Two good for you?", Leslie asked.

Leonard nodded nervously and subconsciously flicked his fingers as if warding off a threat. "Sure. More than what I was expecting actually.

"Listen, you aren't planning on gamma waving any sausage or bacon, are you?"

"You know just as well as I that that would start to unravel the proteins of muscle tissue.", she admonished.

"Of course it would.", he conceded.

Leslie used one of the slices of toast to pick up part of the layer of eggs. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Here, take a bite."

"uh Okay.", Leonard.

He bit into the toast. But before he could chew, Leslie grabbed a hold of his head. She pressed her lips to his and forced open his mouth, stealing the food back.

"Sorry.", she began. "I was just starving on account of you."

Leonard nodded. "That's a good double entendre."

"I know, right?", Leslie cheered.

for(i=0; i=2; i++){

for(i=0, i=2; i++){ knock}

"Leonard and Dr. Winkle."

}

"I'm in the middle of double entendre, Sheldon.", Leonard called out.

"Is that supposed to be a recursive play on words?", Sheldon called back through the door. "Because if not, then there is need to point that out as you are not vicariously referencing the phrase 'menage a troi', the euphemism for engaging in sexual congress with two other people, you are misusing the phrase 'double entendre'.

"However, if you are engaging in a recursive double entendre then" and he let out a few breaths of mirth.

"Watch this.", Leonard told Leslie.

"Watch what?", Sheldon heard through the door.

"With that comment, I was referencing Leslie's use of the phrase from recent conversation.", he answered.

Sheldon let out a few more breaths. "But what you should have said is 'Listen to this.', isn't it?"

"What do you want, Sheldon?", Leonard asked.

Sheldon entered and walked up to Leonard. "You are dangerously close to making us late for lunch. Hence, I want to favor you with a look of hurried annoyance." Then Sheldon scrunched his glare at him while pointing to where he would wear a watch.

"I didn't say come in.", Leonard reminded as he stepped away from Leslie.

"But what I wanted was to come in.", Sheldon stated. "My behavior isn't rude."

And then a green, blonde, towering brute of a man tore its way into the room through a wall.

"See, that's rude.", Sheldon stated.

The brute pushed the physicist to the floor and he slid into the door hard enough to slam it shut.

"Distract him, Leonard.", Leslie called out.

Leonard shrugged in puzzlement. "Well, it worked on Red Dwarf.", he said to himself.

The standing male tapped the behemoth on the shoulder. "Excuse me, but I've been instructed to distract you. Since you've come to the physics department, would you like to start with learning some simple mechanics?"

The green thug looked down blankly at him. It grabbed the back of Leonard's jacket with two fingers and picked the grown man up and set him on a supply shelf. Now that Leonard was eye level with beast, it folded its arms and glared at him.

Leonard nodded. "Okay, okay. You see the study of mechanics starts with"

"RAARGH!", the beast cut him off.

Leonard was shocked to the point he nearly fell of the shelf.

"Go away!", Leslie screamed. The giant turned to her. The optical physicist waved her gloved hand again and another bright red beam burned across the behemoth. It screamed and flexed, readying itself.

Then it caught the door stop of the lab in its eye. It blinked out tears and held that side of its face while Sheldon yelled, "**I'm Batman**!"

Leslie burned another line across the beast. Leonard hit at its head ineffectually. Sheldon readied to throw a thousand dollar prism at the beast. It rapidly decided to retreat.

Leonard scrambled off the shelf. He grabbed his girlfriend forcefully in an encompassing embrace. "Are you alright?"

"If I wasn't, you'd certainly be aggravating my injuries.", Leslie pointed out.

"Oh thank..." Then Leonard realized she was right and loosened his grip. "Sorry."

"Oh no, not at all. Your chivalry was very gallant and moving.", she assured before switching to her singsong, flirtation cadence. "Remind me to thank you later."

"But you probably should check on dumbass."

"Sheldon!", Leonard exclaimed.

He came back around the table to Sheldon zipping up his windbreaker. "You took a pretty big hit. Are you alright?"

Sheldon adopted a haughty expression. "I am perfectly fine and do not require any physical examination."

"At least let me check for a concussion.", Leonard objected while watching his eyes for any signs of lack of focus or undue dilation. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the lab assigned to Dr. Winkle despite her dubious talent.", Sheldon answered.

"And who am I?", he continued.

"Dr. Leonard Hofstader."

"And you are?" was the next question.

"**I'm Batman**!", Sheldon threatened.

"Dammit!", Leonard exclaimed.

"Bazinga.", Sheldon informed. "Also, this incident has made us even more late for lunch. Please hurry."

"We're not going to lunch right now, Sheldon.", Leonard informed. "We have to call campus police and see if they can stop that...that thing from hurting anyone else."

"Well, then.", Sheldon considered. "I guess I'll have to inform Howard and Raj of the inconvenience. I will see you later, Leonard. Dr. Winkle."

The taller man strode out of the lab. Leonard was about to follow him, but two officers of campus police pushed their way into the room with their guns drawn. "Are you guys alright?", the lead called while the follower glanced around.

"Just peachy.", Leslie calmly stated in between bites of eggs and toast.

"Where did it go?", the officer continued.

Leslie pointed at the giant hole in the wall.

"Stay here.", the cop commanded. "There's more of us on the way and we'll want to get statements once we're secure."

Then the two officers left through the hole.

Leonard muttered to himself while typing into his phone. "Sheldon get back here, campus security is going to need your statement."

"Ask him why he didn't just text Raj and Howard, too.", Leslie instructed.

3

Sheldon raced to his office while trying not to look like he was racing. He had no taste for plot and less for holding truck with them. Now he was as close as he allowed himself to putting one afoot. For while Leonard was using his lack of strength on the attacker and Leslie aimed what could hardly be called a weapon at the thing, it dropped a container. The same kind of container that held the same kind of glowing green that he saw only once before. It was his only clue to the identity of the mystery...cape. And while there were very few things that could overcome Sheldon's myriad of phobias and careful cultivation of interlocking schedules, it was the inquisitive nature that drove him to unravel the mysteries that the universe still held. The fact that he did not know who or what or why drove him to reach his office before the entire campus was in lock down.


	6. Falling Pieces

1

for(i=0; i=2; i++){

kNOCK3();

vOCALIZE("Amy")

Amy opened her door to find Sheldon. "You're here well before the anticipated time.

"I've had no time to apply a perfume.", she lamented.

"Oh.", Sheldon noted. "What is the floral base?"

"Orchid.", she answered.

"I don't care for orchids.", Sheldon dismissed and entered the apartment.

"I'm sorry for acting cross.", he apologized as if someone could tell. "Much of my schedule today has been shot like the dog at the end of my father's favorite movie."

"And you've come to me for comfort?", Amy deadpanned.

Sheldon looked into himself for a moment. "If I needed comforting, you would have to provide me with a warm beverage and I am not thirsty. Let's chalk this up to wanting to dote on you. It will be more convenient for the both of us."

She nodded. "I've already learned of the cancellation of Retrogame Friday via Bernadette."

Sheldon regarded her anew.

"She and Howard are taking Raj to an Indian restaurant. They're attempting to see if he can converse with Howard in front of her if it's in Hindi, since encrypting it in a language in which she's not fluent should be the equivalent of whispering in Howard's ear."

He nodded. "Dr. Winkle and Leonard have taken it upon themselves to sweat up the apartment to incubation levels. The soonest I'll be able to decontaminate is after tomorrow's paintball."

"Did you mean that this time is dedicated to doting on me?", Amy inquired.

"Yes.", Sheldon replied. "Why would I lie?"

Amy shook her head. "I was merely using the question as a segue from our friends to us. I'm claiming quid pro quo on the use of garter and the subjection to comics previously this week."

"Of course.", Sheldon agreed while pulling out his smart phone. "There are four flower shops open within walking distance. What is the requisite penance? Fourteen white roses."

"I'm not dead.", Amy scolded. "I just wanted to romance you.

"Now sit on the couch. I'm going to seranade you with my harp."

"I can go as high as 27 red roses.", Sheldon bargained.

Amy raised an eyebrow at him. He huffed and sat on her couch.

Amy sat in an armless chair. Leaning her instrument toward her, she held it steady with her legs and her fingers flew over the strings.

"You say that you love me, and that you always will.  
I'll build you a kingdom in that house on the hill.  
Looking out for love, love, love. Big big love."

Her fingers nearly blurred. Sheldon moved to put away his phone but he couldn't reconcile his hearing with his eyesight. Bringing up the song recognition app on his phone, he found out he was listening to Big Love by Fleetwood Mac. He continued reading.

"Amy.", he interrupted. "That piece has three simultaneous melodies. And is intended for guitar. How are you managing to play/"

Amy cut him off. "A seranade is only considered successful if the recipient acquiesces to physical intimacy. Are you stating that I am successful?"

Sheldon zipped his lips.

Amy moved her hands back to a playing position. She looked at Sheldon staring at her hands and not her. She decided on a much slower piece.

The original Star Trek theme sounded. But any attempt at a pleasant surprise seemed to fall on, if not deaf, distracted ears. So did "Fly Me to the Moon" despite her distinctly remembering it as the ending theme of one of his favorite animes and being overtly amorous complete with commands for physical contact.

"This isn't going to work until you're more relaxed.", Amy admitted. "Tell me what happened."

"I don't want to.", Sheldon stated, ending his sentence on a preposition.

"Sheldon."

The man curled into a fetal position. "Nothing happened. I am perfectly fine."

Amy stood up. "Do I need to remind you that I am a nuero-scientist?"

"I have an eidetic memory.", Sheldon replied.

"So you just think me incompetent.", Amy accused.

"No.", Sheldon exclaimed. His limbs unfurled into nearly his regular sitting position. "What kind of monster do you think I am?"

"Then you accept that if I decide you are agitated then you are, whether you agree or want to admit the condition.", she continued.

Sheldon's face fell at being caught.

Amy's expression softened. The woman pulled Sheldon's legs by his shoes until his feet were propped up on one arm of the couch while the rest of him lay flat on his back. She slid her coffee table over to make room for herself in front of her couch. Amy softly scratched at his abdomen.

"Now just tell me what's bothering you."

Sheldon looked into her eyes. "Well, firstly I like having my belly rubbed not scratched."

Amy corrected herself.

"Secondly, the trouble with my routine started this morning at 11:47 a.m. Worried about being late for lunch, I sought to extricate Leonard from Dr. Winkle's clutches. As soon as I entered the room, another of the green monsters I told you about attacked and threw me across the room.", Sheldon explained.

"Oh my God.", Amy started. "Are you okay?"

Sheldon dismissed the concern. "Dr. Winkle's lab is a den of chaos and ill-conception. Being assaulted by some monster is par for the course.

"What's troubling me is that it dropped another of the vials with the luminescent liquid that the woman consumed. I took it."

"Do you have it with you?", Amy interrupted.

Sheldon shook his head. "No. But I do have a two-fold conundrum. I have a clue that can lead me back to the person I described, but I have no idea as to how. Using Craig's List or the classified advertisements of a local paper would alert the creature's brethren as much as their caped adversary. The other fold, I'm loathed to say, was pointed out by Dr. Winkle earlier. I do not have definitive evidence that the caped person is any more gallant than the creatures.

So not only do I not know what to do with this vial, I have no way of determining what I should do with it."

Amy rubbed intensely, then stopped. "I...I think you should give it to her."

"Defend.", Sheldon prodded.

Amy nodded. Then she licked her lips. Then she rubbed some more. "Alright.

"If she's valorous and this vial could help her, then it would be a valorous act to give it to her. But if she's not, then you may incur her wrath by keeping it from her. Given a dichotomy, both possibilities give rise to the same action.

"But the world is never that digital in its implementation."

"Plank's constant would disagree with you.", Sheldon stated.

Amy blew air through her lips.

"Chemist.", he teased back.

"That's bio-chemist to you, my good sir.", Amy replied good naturedly. "But considering societal standards, my point remains. You don't know this person's previous circumstances. What she's suffered, how much work she's done to make a place for herself, how scared or harried she is...or may be, I mean. She probably has very good reasons for doing everything she does."

Sheldon turned his head to meet her gaze. "And if she's the villain?"

"I don't want to see you hurt.", Amy told him. "If she even raises her hand to you, I want you to give her the vial.

"And don't occupy yourself over whether or not you should. You're too valuable to risk over something that isn't really that important anyway."

Sheldon considered her words. Then he stood up as Amy reluctantly got out of his way. "Amy Farrah Fowler, as always your advice is useful and intelligent. I will let you know the results.

"I'll show myself out."

Sheldon turned and walked out of her apartment, closing the door behind him. Amy locked the door.

And then strode directly to her bedroom.

2

Sheldon entered his apartment. The only light was the glow in the dark paint of directional arrows. Perhaps that is why he didn't see her.

"Dr. Cooper.", she called attention to herself in that ever just sultry voice. "You have something that belongs to me."

Sheldon immediately hit the light switch.

Her entire body was wrapped and draped and cascaded over by her pitch black cape. It seemed to want to pool out over the floor. Only her motions allowed him the view of the blood red lining that matched the blood red fingernail polish and perhaps blood red lipstick. Her face was obscured by bangs down to her chin, a piece of paper and a pitch black sombrero that did more to obscure her face the closer the clicking of her high heeled boots brought the woman to him.

"Where's Leonard?", he asked.

She handed him the note when the brim of her hat hid a view of her face from his height. Her 3/4 length shirt gave way to a peak at the mark on her arm.

Dumbass,  
Took Leonard to a strip club. I don't mind if he gets revved up from other women, but I should at least get to enjoy the acceleration.  
A real physicist

When he was done reading, she had already turned from him. "The vial, Dr. Cooper.", she reminded.

"Why should I give it to you?", he countered.

That's when the panther let its presence be known with a very persuasive growl from very close proximity.

"Oh, look at you.", Sheldon opined. He knelt down to the panther and scratched its shoulders. "Aren't you the slinky one? I'm gonna call you Mr. Slinks."

The great cat looked at Sheldon with a perplexed expression. Then it turned it's head to the woman.

"His name is Data 7.", she corrected.

"Are you sure?", he asked.

Data 7 glared at Sheldon before rolling his eyes. The panther backed away and leapt from the behind the couch to the kitchen space across the apartment. The refrigerator door opened, and then it was obvious the cat had managed it as he bit into a carton of milk with just his top fangs. The panther cocked his head back and drained the carton dry without spilling a drop.

"Speaking of names, how did you know mine?", Sheldon asked the woman's back.

She extended a half gloved hand to point at the wall. "Your awards as well as Dr. Hofstaeder's are on the shelf. A few of the plaques have embedded pictures."

"Now give me the vial. It's too dangerous for you to keep."

Sheldon stood to his full height. "How did you know I have it?"

"Do you believe I have powers?", she stated. One of the woman's skips took her from the communal area down the hall to the bedrooms. "Perhaps one of them is to be aware of the vial?", she called out after turning the corner.

"Don't go in my room.", Sheldon called after her while rushing after her.

When he caught up to her, in his room, the first thing the back of her head told him was, "The vial isn't in here, Dr. Cooper."

"No, it's not.", he agreed.

"Then why were you so adamant to keep me out of your room?"

"Because people don't go in my room.", he replied.

She spun and grabbed his wind breaker closed as well as a firm grasp on the Flash shirt and the longer shirt he wore under it. The woman lifted him abover her head with one arm and swung his door shut with the other. She gently set him against a wall and placed her hands on his shoulders.

Sheldon could only hold her elbows as she entreated him. "You don't know what's contained in that vial. It can be dangerous. You need to give it to me."

"Or you could tell me why it's so dangerous.", Sheldon countered. "While leaving my room. No one's supposed to be in my room."

"Or maybe I could stay.", she started in her breathy voice. "There could be other ways to convince you."

Her sombrero folded down over his eyes as she stood to kiss him. She seemed to be a little taller than Penny or Amy but that could be her heels.

Her lipstick landed on him nearly as gently as the mascara from her heavily made up eye lashes. But Sheldon's full strength pushing her away did little more than roll her sleeves up.

When she broke away, Sheldon licked the colored wax from his lips. Strangely, he didn't detect any of the biological scent he smelled from nearly everyone else. "Fascinating.", he wondered to himself.

Then he managed to see past her sombrero to the mark on her now exposed fore-arm. Two words were marked, permanently. Cyber Six.

"I think we can come to some arrangement, Dr. Cooper.", she decided.

"You're going to force yourself upon me until I crack?", Sheldon accused.

The woman froze. Her hands popped an inch off of his shoulders, then slowly backed away along with the rest of her. By the time she was facing away from him, she was shivering to nearly the point he was.

"No.", she whispered. "I'm not a...I'm not the type...I'm not. I didn't come here to hurt you, Dr. Cooper. Or scare you. I just need that vial, and you to not have it. You don't know how important that is.

"And you need to not know.", the woman cut him off. She clutched her cape around herself. "Turn off the scientist for just a moment."

Sheldon was about to question again, but he has an eidetic memory. "Ah yes, my accolades and Leonard's trinkets told you of our pursuits in physics."

"Data 7.", she called out. "We're leaving."

The door the his room opened and the panther stuck his head in. He glared at the physicist and then turned to the woman, arching a brow.

"No, he hasn't given me the vial.", she informed.

The panther began to stalk towards the man.

"We're leaving without it.", she countered.

The cat whipped his head back to her with his jaw dropped. She seemed to glare back. The panther scoffed and his purr took on a markedly annoyed tone. He then somersaulted over Sheldon's bed to his window, landing with his forepaws on the sill and his hind legs in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. He casually flicked open the lock with his paw and opened the window with his snout. One glance back and then he leapt from the window sill to the roof of the building across the street.

Sheldon shifted to look after the panther. "Your companion is...?"

The woman softly padded to the window. "Yes. I love cats. They're the apitome of indifference.

"When you change your mind, I'll be back."

And with that, she braced herself in the window frame. Her form was hurled into the night. Nearly as if it was an after thought, she twisted wrapping herself in her cape and then it unfurled out from her as she landed on the building across the street. With a few more bounds, she and Data 7 was too far to still see against the black of night.

3

The woman and the panther sat next to a cell phone tower atop a disused water tower. She stared back in the direction of Dr. Cooper's apartment.

The panther purred judgementaly.

"Oh, don't give me that.", the sultry voice countered.

The panther nudged her.

"I know, Data 7.", she admitted. "And I you."

She wrapped a sisterly arm around the panther. The two stared back at the apartment they had left for some time.


	7. Testing

1

"Ugh!", Leonard complained as he trudged up the stairs.

"Carry on my wayward soul.", Sheldon instructed. "After all, it is your tawdry pursuits that have delayed us into tardiness."

"Firstly, putting together Leslie's desk was not a tawdry pursuit. It was a perfectly applicaple furthering of her research...especially since it turns out that her 'desk' was made of recycled, reinforced polymers and a hefty under-carraige of tempered steel.", Leonard objected.

"Secondly!

"We're late because you disrupted your precious schedule. Why did you want to go to the university anyway? You should be in the apartment texting me about paintball not in my face bitching about it. Why was Meridiana Woods so important that you skipped Dr. Who anyway?"

Sheldon weighed the possible options in his brain. "I could explain or you could witness. Witnessing would save effort on my part."

let gREETING = kNOCK3() + vOCALIZE("Amy, Penny, Bernadette") + kNOCK3() + vOCALIZE("Penny, Amy, Bernadette") + kNOCK3() + vOCALIZE("Amy, Penny, Bernadette")

Bernadette opened the door. "I don't get my name first in one of those?"

Sheldon appeared confused. "I started with Amy because she's my girl friend and therefore social protocol holds that I should prioritize her. I continued with Penny because this is her domicile. I finished with Amy because it is her with which I wish to speak.

"If you're feeling emotionally distressed by these circumstances I suggest you seek comfort from the male who has taken on such duties. And unless by some preposterously organized application of Hysenberg's uncertainty principle my quarks, leptons and various other material paraphenalia reconstituted so that I'm now Howard, I'm going to file your emotional state under not my problem."

"Come on in, Sheldon.", Bernadette said.

"Well, that wouldn't pass the vampire test.", Sheldon stated. "I believe it is the duty of the residential occupant to determine who enters."

Bernadette turned and shrugged his shoulders. "If he wants to be like that, he can stay out there.", Penny called.

"Drat.", Sheldon cursed. "Hoisted by my own sence of decorum."

"Oh, don't be like that, Bestie.", Amy said before appearing in the doorway. "What would you like to communicate?"

"Actually, I am making a request for a grant proposal.", Sheldon corrected.

"Truly.", Amy furrowed her brow.

"Yes.", Sheldon hesitantly offered. "Have I ever been dishonest before?"

"I didn't mean to insinuate...", Amy replied.

"Of course not.", Sheldon assured. "In fact, I apologize. I'm new at this whole relationship business."

Amy nodded curtly. "Thank you for understanding."

Sheldon turned to Leonard. "Isn't she a warm and considerate girlfriend?"

Leonard looked past to Penny and Bernadette. "Sure. Exactly my assessment."

Sheldon turned back to Amy. He then proceeded to pull the canister of still glowing green liquid from his wind breaker.

"Is that...?", Amy began amazed.

Sheldon agreed. "Yes, it is the canister the creature dropped in Leslie's lab."

Leonard was shocked. "The police locked down the entire university over that attack!"

"That's why I stashed it in my office, knowing it would be safe behind a multiple of the usual security.", Sheldon informed.

"You withheld evidence from a police investigation!", Leonard told him.

"And very good I did.", Sheldon remarked. "It was my only clue to the identity of the mysterious, caped woman. And it paid off, as well. She approached me last night in our apartment."

"There was a superhero in our apartment last night!", Leonard exclaimed.

"We haven't made the distinction between heroine and villainess yet, Leonard.", Sheldon objected. "You should regard her as Bobby Drake regards Eric Lensherr."

Sheldon turned back to Amy. "Iceman and Magneto respectively, for the comics disinclined."

Leonard already had his glasses of so he could rub the bridge of his nose. "Is there anything else I should know?

"I would expect so. After all, as research physicists, we constantly strive to expand the human knowledge base. Although as your work is highly derivative, I do suppose you're accostumed to being told what those things are by originators."

Leonard threw his hands up. "Just, hurry up and get your fatigues on so we can go play."

"God, I hope Captain Sheldon can carry a victory today to make up for what I go through.", he mumbled as he went through the door to his own apartment.

"That's Major Cooper.", Sheldon told his retreating form.

"Now that bit of tediousness is over with.", Amy prodded.

Sheldon nodded. "He's been like this all morning. Anyhow:

"I'm going to need you to do a chemical analysis on this. I have no intentions of handing this over to a woman of unknown intentions until I know what it is. Therefore, I am specifically handing it over to you, Amy Farrah Fowler. I trust that you will take into account my best interests."

Sheldon reached into his windbreaker's pocket. "And here's ten thousand dollars to fund the research. Please draw up a grant proposal at your lesiure with a provision for additional funding should it prove necessary."

Amy held the vial and the stack of money in either hand. "It will be e-mailed to you as early as my Monday will allow."

"Thank you, Amy.", he said pleasantly.

"You're quite welcome, Sheldon.", she replied pleasantly.

Amy turned back into Penny's place and closed the door after securing her 'gifts' in her purse.

"You're going to have to get him a Rolex for flashing his money in front of your friends.", Bernadette commented. "It'll put him back in his place without the discomfort of a stern talking to."

Penny looked back and forth between her friends. "How much do you scientists make?"

"Not that much.", Amy told her. "But you know Sheldon spends only fifty-two percent of his income."

"I thought it was forty six.", Bernadette objected.

"He budgeted for me upon initializing the Relationship Agreement.", Amy informed.

"But why do you ask Penny?"

She shrugged. "Oh, just wondering. I knew Raj was loaded. I didn't know everyone but me was."

"Didn't you say that Raj appeared more attractive now that you know he has money?", Amy remembered.

"I suppose."

Amy lit up. "Well, I am a research scientist. And I've just recieved a grant on a new project for ten thousand dollars."

"That's nice Amy.", the waitress acknowledged half heartidly. She turned back to Burnadette as they both frowned slightly.

"Is your musculature as tense as it appears?", Amy asked.

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about.", Penny dismissed. "After holding you down during your night terrors on Tuesday, a double shift Wednesday, spending my off day chasing after Sheldon and being screamed at by a panther, and another double shift yesterday I'm bound to be a little tense."

Amy proceeded to Vulcan nerve pinch Penny to falling onto the couch. "Oh wow.", the blonde exclaimed. "What was that?"

"I have a doctorate in neuroscience, specializing in human cognitive function.", Amy informed. "Now let mama go to work."

Amy helped Penny to a crouching position facing the back of the couch. "If you take off your shirt , my fingers will flow over your alabaster skin more easily."

Penny's head started. "um...No.", Penny decided. "And Bernadette? Why don't you just take my wine."

"No problem.", the shorter blonde agreed. Then instantly drank the rest of the glass. "I'll just...er, see about the rest of the bottle."

Amy paced back and forth, eying up the situation. Then after making a silent determination she laid hands on Penny as if a church revival. Penny moaned embarrassingly. Amy bragged, "Oh, does that feel good?

"Purely as feed back. I'd hate to accidentally injure you."

Penny's hung head nodded. "Sure. It feels good."

"That's what I'm talking about.", Amy declared. She continued spreading out Penny's back , stretching every muscle in her back. Amy then placed her left hand on the base of her head and felt through the blonde tresses for...something, Penny did not know. Then Amy's right hand braced the base of her spine.

"OHMIGODAIMEEEE!", Penny cried. The blonde arched her back as much as her abs would allow until her breasts nearly broke through her shirt.

Amy's smug expression could not be surpassed. "That's right. Take it like a woman."

Penny curled into a fetal positon. "I'm sleepy.", she stated. A moment later her eyes were closed and she was sucking her thumb.

Amy turned to Bernadette. Bernadette regarded her and her recent...victim. "Howie knows I'm here.", she blurted out.

"Excellent.", Amy beamed. "If you gush about the male you're pair bonded with then I can without any social reprucussions."

"Okay, where to start.", Bernadette began.

"Violating the privacy of the bedroom, please.", Amy instructed.

"Oh my.", Bernadette. "Well...

"There was this one time that Howard brought out a Battlestar Galactica flight suit. But it was too big for him. He looked really confused that I was trying to get him to wear it though which is weird since it was big enough for like, Katie Sachoff or something."

"That's interesting.", Amy deapanned politely. "Sheldon has engaged me in physical intimacy."

Penny lifted her head. "Really?", she objected. "I'm relaxed, not drunk."

"I'm already rubbing his belly.", Amy confided.

"The alien pet thing?", Penny asked as she became more lucid.

"Fifth and a quarter base.", Bernadette said appreciatively. "Nice.

"Wait a minute. Above or below the shirt?"

"Above."

"Eh.", Bernadette shrugged. "Fifth base is fifth base. What's important is that he really cares about you."

"Are you kidding?", Penny scolded as she stood up. "Sheldon just made a public show of trusting her and respecting her work. The last time a Cooper let someone into their heart that far, it was his mother finding Jesus."

"I fear he's not as hung up on me as Leonard is on you.", Amy admitted.

"Leonard's not...", Penny began. "That ship has sailed, Amy.

"I think."

Amy frowned. "So we won't be initiating the Priya Protocol with Leslie?"

"Priya Protocol?", Bernadette questioned.

"Yes.", Amy nodded. "I thought being able to abbreviate to P.P. would only allow us to speak of the practice covertly by working it into normal speech. Also, it's the same sort of juvenile plotting that I was never privy to on the school yard."

2

"Where's Major Whackadoodle?", Howard asked.

Four camoflauged figures lay on their bellies on the top of the ridge just outside the shack in physicist territory.

"Who's the new guy?", Raj asked.

"He's in the shack, reminiscing.", Leonard explained. "He says that this should turn into a turkey shoot and not require his 'John Connor-esque' command skills. With Barry taking your place on the Engineering College's brigade and our domination the last time we were out here, the hard sciences and practical applications fell into alliance like dominoes. The social sciences and the liberal arts should flood into view in a staggered pattern."

"A Jew shooting up the SS?", Howard asked. "Channukah came early this year."

"uh...Who's the new guy?", Raj continued.

"But doesn't he have an eidetic memory?", Howard realized. "Why would he need to rememinsce?"

"Like I know what goes on in that man's head!", Leonard whined. "I can barely keep up with the fall out.

"All I know is that he was up all night watching footage from the Meridiana Woods explosion and hiding the fact that he had this green sludge from the monster that attacked us in his desk drawer."

Raj spoke again. "New guy? Anyone?"

"He's really caught up on this cape he's chasing, isn't he?", Howard continued.

"Yeah.", Leonard agreed. "Now he's got Amy in on it, trying to figure out what the green stuff is. I don't know whether she's revelling in the fact that she's the only person besides my mother whose work he respects or building a machine to replot his brainwaves in his sleep out of jealousy."

"New guy?", Raj asked. "Like, that guy? Right there."

"It's me, Raj.", Leslie spoke from behind her face mask.

Raj nearly sounded the squeal in denial.

Howard and Leonard turned to her. She shrugged. "He was getting whiny. And there's nobody here to shoot, so I had to lash out at somebody."

And then harried and harrassed liberal arts professors funnelled into the clearing.

"Alright!", Leslie celebrated. "Aim for the thighs and biceps. No one wears thigh or bicep guards."

Meanwhile, Sheldon sat with his head perched on folded hands, elbows perched on knees. The gloom of the shed mirrored his mood. He was familiar with this conundrum, as it haunts all string theorists. He knew the evidence. He knew the hypothesis to draw from it. He knew how to test it.

What bothered him is that the next prediction was impossible until the next experiment either proved the hypothesis an adequate explanation or proved it false. And even then, truth was at best an approximation for non-omniscent creatures. Even his intellect did not make him a god.

Homo Novus, certainly. But god? Mary Cooper may have allowed heresy but not outright blasphemy.

3

Class Knock{

void public Main(Amy);

Amy answered the door to an obviously agitated Sheldon. "Hello, Sheldon. Please come in."

"Is girl's night, or rather day, over?", he inquired.

"Yes.", Amy answered while closing her door. "Bernadette is asserting her dominance over Howard through folk remedy style relationship gambits. And Penny is at work."

Sheldon cocked his head. He heard no other persons in her apartment. "Are you completely alone?"

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Yes. But why? Are planning on finally ravishing me?"

Sheldon placed both hands on her shoulders, pushed her bodily. When she was braced against the door, he pressed his lips to hers. The tall man licked those lips.

He tasted carefully.

Amy stayed still as he unbuttoned her sweater. And her shirt. He tugged on the garment and its tails pulled from her skirt. The bright bra clashed with the other muted colors she wore. Sheldon gripped her shirt collar and slid it down her left arm.

Amy slapped her right hand over the crook of her left elbow, over her shirt. "Sheldon, no.", she gasped out.

Sheldon jerked away. "I...", he began then stopped. He walked to the other side of the couch, lengthwise, before turning back to her. "I thought you sought this kind of activity from me."

"Not that 'no'.", Amy whined. "Never that no to you."

Amy turned away from him, molding her cheek to the wall. "Dammit, Sheldon.", she exclaimed. She nearly slapped the wall in frustration but checked her swing in time. Still, the door's frame shuddered.

"Oh, how I wanted...", Amy wished. "If only this was just you finally letting your lusts get the better of you. But you've always been free with your emotions and desires with me...and this isn't carnal. I would even more love to believe that you were going out on a limb because you thought it was what I wanted. But you've never patronized me. You've always accepted, even celebrated who I am with no dishonesty. This...This isn't acquiescence.

"There's only one drive you have that would push you this far. Curiousity. You're doing this to find answers.

"Is there anything you won't do to pursue answers?", she lamented.

"Of course.", Sheldon assured. "You know I have tremendous parental, social and even professional pressure to understand religious declarations particularly in relation to my work's implications on the origins of the universe, but that's never moved me. There are a myriad of topics that I'm exposed to daily basis that I don't dwadle on: sports, fashions, Howard.

"I reserve my intellect for what's important. Such pursuits are building a map of the structure of building blocks of reality. And you.

"I want to know you as much as I can."

"Hoo.", Amy sung. It hung in the air between them, like a hankerchief starting a race.

"Sheldon."

"Amy."

"I want you to know that I was never disingenuous with you."

"But dishonest?"

"I never meant any harm. On you or Penny or anyone in the whole nation."

"But harm has come? Or outside our borders?"

Amy turned to him. Her shirt still open and clothes askew. And tears welling in her eyes.

"Please don't cry.", Sheldon begged. "Tears are a tell tale sign of sadness and distress, even in comics and anime. I don't want you to be sad or experience distress."

Amy smiled. The tears still came, slowly, single file.

"But that'...", Sheldon began. "You confound me, Amy Farrah Fowler."

"You confound me, Sheldon.", she replied.

"Whatever am I to do with you?", they both sighed wistfully.

The woman walked toward him. She carefully reached for his wrists and used them to guide his hands to the cups of her bra inside her shirt. She stepped closer to him, trapping his hands between their bodies. She slipped her arms under his and completed her hug, resting her head against his chest.

Sheldon kissed the beret that she always wore to keep her hair from draping over her face. Then he fell silent.

"Thank you for not pulling it out.", Amy said.

"You're welcome, Amy Farrah Fowler.", Sheldon replied.

"I've been a bad Amy.", she admitted.

"Pish posh.", he told her. "You're a good Amy.

"You're my Amy."

"I've asked you for french kissing and seven minutes in heaven culminating in second base. In the time I've known you, you've made up for everything else in minutes."

"Every time you've forced me to respect you, I've had my way with you as well."

Amy enjoyed the embrace a little longer.

"Please give me some time to prepare. After which, you'll come into my bedroom and be provided all the answers that can be provided.

"Trust me."

Sheldon nodded curtly. "My trust is as my respect, absolute."

Amy stood away. She nodded curtly. Holding the unbuttoned edge of her shirt as she did her purse, she turned and walked into her bedroom closing the door.

Sheldon stood outside it and waited.

Note: Amy Farrah Fowler wears the brown beret opposite the part in her hair in nearly every episode. Look for it.


	8. Exposition

Cyber Six stood in the doorway to Amy's bedroom.

There was no mask.

The sombrero created a false shadow over her face and a distinct curve that drew the eye. With no beret to hold it, her hair fell straight over her face which obscured most of it from view. And facial recognition software measured distances across faces and their ratios, so measuring a cheek bone vs. a hair line would prove impossible. There were only two distinguishing facial features. The first was the blood red lipstick that distorted the shape of her lips and only reminded her viewers of the blood red lining that would catch one's eye on the pronounced collars of her cape. From every angle but dead on, those very collars obstructed view. The other was a heavily made up eye of pitch black, cartoonish lashes. The bold, basic colors created a distinct image based on clashing vividness that memory would latch onto: darkness and blood. There was not a hint of a plain or ordinary face or color.

There was no mask.

Her clothing was another poem yet the same story. All black. Skin tight. The top was a single layer and showed a whole lot of chest and not a hint of cleavage. It was definitively a woman's shirt with three quarter sleeves. This allowed skin to show over her wrists down to the undone biker gloves, which in turn exposed the blood red nail polish. The pants hugged every curve as well and melted into the heeled boots. Every thing matched and not a hint of frumpiness could be detected.

There was no mask.

"Dr. Cooper.", she called out to him. It was in that same sultry voice he heard so few times before but would remember forever without that facet of his gifts. A breathy power, like something an independent television studio would hope to pull out of someone like Penny. It spoke of power innate rather than earned through years of study, a demand for respect brought about by the sheer physicality of the woman who spoke it.

There was no mask. And he still could not see her for Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler. Cyber Six was the woman that stood in the doorway to Amy's bedroom.

She slowly walked toward him. Her hips announced her coming as if they couldn't stay still. Cyber Six took one of Sheldon's hands in both of hers. "Please. This way, Dr. Cooper."

He was led onto Amy's bed and guided into lying on its center. Where Amy curled up to him, pulling at his clothing and snuggling her face against him, Cyber Six lay her back against his side and pulled his arm around her. She comfortingly patted the arm with one hand and rubbed his belly with the other. Her sombrero guarded her eyes as if siesta in noonday sun.

"Penny taught Dr. Fowler a game.", this wholly new woman began. "It's called Truth or Dare. Do you know it?"

"I was indoctrinated with the rules.", Sheldon answered her. "The pledges of a fraternity were tasked with making sure the fourteen year old did not take no for an answer."

Cyber Six patted his arm. "Alright. I'll begin then. Truth or Dare?"

Sheldon knew Amy would never deliberately hurt him without a greater cause, such as conditioning him into a new skill or acquiring new information for humanity. Things he would rather be hurt for rather than not. He had no idea what Cyber Six' intentions were. And the fear that crept up with every new restaurant or sneeze did not seem to even be present to override his wonder.

"Dare.", Sheldon answered.

"I dare you...", the woman trailed off. "To hold me just as you are now for the duration of the game."

"Wouldn't that curtail possible Dares from me?", he asked.

Cyber Six smiled freely, but as if she was ill practiced from not not smiling but simply rarely having anything to smile about. "I see no reason why I shouldn't play in any way I choose, Dr. Cooper."

"Very well.", he conceded. "It is now my turn, if I am going to participate in this...charade? Sham? Pretense?"

"Pretense is as good a word as any, if you need one.", she conceded.

"Truth or Dare?", he put simply.

"Truth.", she replied. "Isn't that what you're after?"

"What is your origin story?", Sheldon inquired.

He could feel Cyber Six shake her head. "Life isn't that by the book. Kiddie books have cut and dry origin stories: Hero gets power X by means Y and chooses brand name. I'm not so simple, I'm afraid."

"Is it the question or my turn that is disqualified?", Sheldon asked. "Or have I simply won the game outright?"

He could feel Cyber Six shifting her head. It as if the motion helped her weigh the options. "I'll give you two for one on new ones."

"Very well.", he accepted. "Why are you not Amy Farrah Fowler?"

Cyber Six puckered her lips. "I suppose because that's not what Von Richter designed.

"Von Ricther was a child prodigy in eugenical engineering for the Third Reich. He was the epitome of what everyone but the Nazis thought of Nazis as: motivated only by his own personal ambition and willing to get power through frightening scientific advancements and an absolute absence of moral scruples. He didn't even try to hide his actions behind some imagined racialism or previous slights or propaganda for an Aryan 'greater good'. Hitler's regime offered him the greatest amount of resources to do whatever he wanted to find out whatever he wanted by doing whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted. He offered them an extraordinary mind in an Aryan body and concerted results."

"He basically invented the field of chemical cybernetics. Von Ricther was charged with engineering artificial organs so that the dead could rejoin the Nazi war machine. He was more than mildly successful. No one really understood how many poor souls he ripped apart to make his advancements. The field collapsed with the end of the war. And his escape."

"Von Richter possessing his level of intelligence was on the bleeding edge of Nazi SS officers escaping to Argentina. Plundered wealth from previously occupied nations and the accumulated body of scientific knowledge that scared the Allies into starting occult research centers as part of their intelligence agencies was sent ahead to meet him. He found a spot remote enough to start up his research with the intention of advancing far enough ahead so that he could force the world into...appeasement."

"His work was more than successful. His designs for a super soldier are proving to be a century ahead of their time. The Cyber series were eugenically selected zygotes and then genetically manipulated to not only show all the traits of a combatant but also to accept the implants of designer organs and nanotech support colonies."

Sheldon caught his thoughts racing away from him. "So your strength..."

"A combination of reintroducing the muscle fiber protein lost in humanity's separation from the other great apes from tagging the gene in the German, super strong family; synthetic polymers rewoven into the muscle fiber by self replenishing nanobots overlaid on a skeleton that's rewoven into itself made of building blocks more durable than just calcium."

"And your aversion to Penny touching Amy's breasts..."

"I don't have mammary glands, I have nanite factories. You may not notice. Penny and Bernadette...even Leonard would. Dr. Fowler is presented as being 'normal'."

"And your allergic reaction to penicillin...

"A farce to aid in the obscuring my similarities with Dr. Fowler."

"And why kissing you is so..."

"You don't taste the same biological soup that everyone else has is for two reasons. Firstly, not only is my genetic code fairly unique but the way my cells replicate themselves is augmented through a variety of means. Not many viruses have the capacity to use them for self replication and very few bacteria can use them for food as there's never been a base population of Cybers for them to adapt to. Also, an artificial immune system supports the natural one, triggering apoptosis in any cell that would support a virus' reproduction cycle."

Sheldon furrowed his brow. "That research was just published by the British this year. And you're saying that this Von Richter installed a custom tailored immune system in you from/"

"He was ahead of his time.", Cyber Six lamented. "What surprises me is that you can actually taste the difference."

"How so?", he asked.

"Just that you have so many natural occurring capacities beyond your family. Your hearing. Intellect. Did you know that picky eating in humans is triggered by texture not taste, yet your exacting requirements for your food seems to be based on chemical content. It's just startling that you have multiple senses that...well, sensitive.

"Heh. Remember the bug eyed stare my mother gave you when you met her?", Cyber Six asked.

"Leonard had assured me that I had not observed some social protocol.", Sheldon replied, knowing that Amy was well aware of his eidetic memory so Cyber Six...should be?

The woman continued. "No, it wasn't that. She just thought I had found another Cyber. But I managed to convince her that you're merely, how do you put it? Homo Novus."

"So she is your mother. And you have one."

Cyber Six shifted uncomfortably. "Apparently Von Richter decided paying large sums of Nazi gold turned to cash to young women of other countries was cheaper than developing artificial wombs...at the time. He did manage to perfect gestation chambers while the rest of the world still waits. But she was young and poor and at the time in the States that was enough pressure to convince her to 'go away' and 'study in Latin America' for a year along with a few thousand others from across the world. As far as I know, they seemed to want to forget the entire experience as soon as they repatriated. I know she certainly did."

"You keep mentioning others, thousands.", Sheldon said. "My second question becomes 'Where are the rest of these Cybers?'"

"In a lab at my university.", Cyber Six stated sadly. "You see, we had a design flaw: an excess of oxytocin. Or at least by Nazi standards for a weapon."

"The neurochemical that corresponds to trustworthiness?", Sheldon asked.

"The same reason that Dr. Fowler was unable to carry your objections with Penny's chair made us unfit for our purpose. Each Cyber carried incredible military might. But what was kept natural with our brain chemistry to encourage loyalty and obedience gave us morality. And it's easy to see how our ethical development became a problem for a would be Nazi despot. Especially since we were intended to be a blind army.

"So came the purge. I'm the only one that escaped. Cyber Twenty-Nine had already died. My brother's brain was implanted in a retooled body...probably just for Von Richter to see if he could. Data Seven now has the abilities and limitations of his new form.

"So in answer to your question: Dr. Fowler has managed to secure a grant for a long term study on the cognitive development in cats across their lifetimes. Now Data Seven spends his days being provided for and using facial recognition software, only slightly retooled, to scour the internet. He's better at some aspects of researching than I am."

"My turn, Dr. Cooper.", Cyber Six informed. "If you've only kissed family members and performed mouth to mouth on a nun, any difference with Dr. Fowler could be chalked up to geography. Why wasn't it?"

"I'll presume you meant 'Truth or Dare' and I willingly chose 'Truth'.", Sheldon scolded. "I wish that my experiences were so muted. However, I have been kissed by Dr. Hostadter/"

"Dr. Hostadter?", Cyber Six cut in.

"No, his mother.", he corrected. "As I was saying: Dr. Bevery Hostadter, Ramona Nowitzki, Kathy O'Brian, Abigail...she never did tell me her surname, and Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton all have at one time or another planted a smacker on me without any invitation or regard for my discomfort or hygiene.

"And little Katie Milimo. I don't know why anyone called her 'little'. The bully was a the giantess of the fourth grade and terrorized her intellectually superior if chronologically deficient classmates. Made me all the more motivated to skip grades three at a time."

"And when were you going to tell Dr. Fowler this?", Cyber Six demanded.

"I'd like to seek the protection of the game and state that that would require another question.", Sheldon answered. "However, in deference to the girl friend position: I did not want to Amy to think that I was merely using her to comfort me after my assaults."

"That is how you would think of them, isn't it?" Cyber Six rubbed his belly comfortingly.

"My turn. Truth or Dare?", Sheldon asked.

"Dare.", Cyber Six replied quickly.

"I dare you to tell me about all the identities you've taken on in addition to Cyber Six to the point that determining the real one.", Sheldon commanded.

She sat up and the single eye glared at him.

"Ahem. 'I see no reason why I shouldn't play in any way I choose.' End quote.", Sheldon justified.

"Alright.", she conceded. "It's just a hard question."

"I don't see how.", Sheldon whined. "Bruce Wayne is really Batman, who retains the identity to access resources. On the other end of the spectrum is Superman who is really Clark Kent but would lose his mediocre lifestyle should the world learn of his capabilities. The Green Lantern is merely a position thrust upon people. The X-Men generally regard their code names as just that, and think of themselves by their birth names."

"No, I understand what you're asking.", Cyber Six told him. "I just don't know that I have a good understanding of who I 'really' am myself."

"For much of what would have been my formative years, I was treated as sentient live stock. We didn't think of ourselves with the pronoun 'I'. We just knew that we would be corralled if we didn't respond to our number soon enough." The woman revealed her name tattooed on her arm.

Then, on a whim, she took the time to regard Sheldon's reflection in her nail polish. But she soon continued.

"And it's not like I wanted to define myself as the one that had needles jabbed in her brain to see if a prepubescent weapon could orgasm one hundred twenty eight times. The one in the rotation right after heat tolerance but before digestive capacity."

"After...when I was free. I was still just a girl in a fishing village, hidden away and learning about the world in third person. I can't say I was that child either."

"It was Sustenance that drew me out. I first became the woman you could call Cyber Six when my symptoms began to emerge. As another loyalty enforcer multitasked with an augmentation, Von Reichter had us addicted to a substance only he could produce. You see, my synapses fire many times more often than average. It does provide some aid in faster reflexes, and pretending intelligence."

Sheldon asked, "Pretending?"

Cyber Six sighed. "I'm probably not that much smarter than any average person. On the other hand, I can be that smart several times faster.

"It's not all fun and games though. Because they're over stressed, my mylan sheaths deteriorate at an accelerated pace as well. Without Sustenance: night terrors begin, twitches and seizures, irritability and poor judgement, with drawl... And if what was done to Cyber One Thousand Forty Seven is what to expect: hallucinations, various insanities, catatonia and paralysis followed by, one would presume, a complete shutdown of the nervous system if a heart attack or suffocation from lack of lung motion didn't happen first.

"When we were a future weapon, we were...the other 4999 of us were inundated with Sustenance. After my escape, not so much. Fortunately or unfortunately, Von Reichter hadn't stopped applying his research to building an army from other designs. Their Sustenance became my ration every time I thwarted one of his schemes. And once I became a thorn in his side, his schemes became my assassination, giving me even more creatures to provide...Sustenance. He even sent Data Seven after me. Fortunately for us both, he's capable of regenerating his synaptic coating 'naturally'."

"It was this time that we were fighting over Meridiana that I adopted my first attempt at being someone. Adrian Seidelman. He was a Literature teacher."

"Liberal Arts?", Sheldona objected.

Cyber Six laughed. She looked up and him and then laughed again. "I tell you that I pretended to be a man for quite some time and you gloss over it to object at my job?" She laughed more in her tell tale sultry voice.

"I feel vaguely emasculated.", he complained.

She pet his arm assuringly. "It was the first time I was trying the whole secret identity concept. A male literature teacher slid by a mad scientist looking for a female artificial soldier.

"And Argentina is just a different country, particularly at the time. Sure, it looks like a shining beacon of women's liberation in South America and in many ways it tries really hard to be. There's set aside seats in parliment for women and even Cristina is president. But in many ways, walking down the street by yourself or just not being noticed is a lot easier when you're perceived as male.

"I think that helped Adrian's relationship with Lucas."

"Lucas.", Sheldon prompted.

"Adrian's best friend. He was just like you in so many ways but what you would pick out. He was this big, blonde, tanned rough and tumble kind of guy. A biology teacher who loved teaching and his students and had a knack for finding adventure..."

"That sounds nothing like me.", he objected.

Cyber Six giggled nearly girlishly. "Told you. But it's true. For instance, his Spot. There was this restaurant he would go to nearly every day. And everyone, I mean everyone, knew exactly which chair was Lucas' Spot. It was at this one table next to a window that allowed him to keep an eye on the street but was shaded by an awning so it never had any glare. He could look out the window, talk to the person across from him, see the television over the bar and the monitor the place by the mirrors behind the bar without craning his neck. It was just close enough to the radiator so it would be warm without him sweating yet in this cross breeze he would set up by cracking the window and people coming in the door. And the mirrors allowed him to sit with his back to the door so he could dart out should the need arise.

"Everyone knew where to find him. You knew what he was eating just by the time of day. People even knew if he had met anyone, friend, a girl because one of the first things he would do is sit them down in his Spot and get them a cup of coffee. If they couldn't appreciate the sheer joy of his spot then that was it. They couldn't be trusted. But as soon as they showed approval, he made them move because that was his Spot."

"He thought he was God's gift to the campus. Had advice on everything. And most everyone else was annoyed that he was right so very often.

"Adrian and Lucas ended up being best friends."

The woman sighed. "But, just like you, he didn't handle his emotions as well as he would like. And his upbringing would pop out of no where when you least expect hit. So he dealt with me how Argentina had taught him to treat all women. He nearly got his head cracked open getting into fist fights with the Technos...you've seen two, you know what they're like...trying to 'protect me'. And anytime he wasn't playing sidekick, but he just couldn't call it that, he tried his best to act like he was hitting on me because that's what was expected even though no one was watching."

"What made you leave?", Sheldon asked.

"I didn't know that I was done with my answer, Dr. Cooper.", Cyber Six objected. "I haven't told you about Amy Farrah Fowler yet."

Sheldon furrowed his brow. But he kept silent.

"I left because it all hit the fan.", she told him. "Have you researched the Meridiana Woods incident?"

Sheldon hemmed and hawed. "You mentioned in your night terrors. How was I supposed to know? Besides Penny, Leonard and I spent a weekend on my couch staring at the TV watching the world's first biobomb creep into port trying to ratchet up the War on Terror as if 9/11 hadn't. It was on 73rd commercial break that Penny decided she no longer needed our permission to come and go from out apartment as she pleased."

Cyber Six nodded. "That was Von Reichter. Data Seven found him. I saw it all coming to an end. So I blew my secret identity with everyone that mattered to me and ran off to certain doom. He had a pretty simple plan, show that he could destroy a city like any world super power. My plan was pretty simple. Kick his teeth in.

"It was a stale mate. I thought he was the only one that could turn the Island of Doom, as he called it, away from the city. As long as it was going to destroy Meridiana, I couldn't do anything. But as soon as it blew, he knew I would end him. He even offered freeing me from Sustenance to work for him.

"Turns out his 'son' had other plans."

"Someone chose to procreate with him?", Sheldon objected.

"I don't know how he had a son, just that he did.", Cyber Six replied, as if she was exasperated with the memory itself. "Jose acted like a second in command of an espionage mercenary group and a perfect storm of a brat at the same time. He would goose step while monologuing and then get carried around in the arms of the monsters he designed while calling every one of them an idiot. Apparently standing in his 'father's' shadow became to much for him so he turned the island of explosive right at Von Reichter's headquarters. When the thing came close, the building shook enough for his latest experiments to escape and do my job for me. In the resulting explosion, I was doused with so much Sustenance I thought I'd never need another dosage."

"That explosion reshaped the coast line!", Sheldon exclaimed.

"I know. I was there.", Cyber Six replied. "Fortunately, Data Seven and I were using a reinforced bunker for a shield.

"I never heard from Jose again. The criminal empire he had organized to further his Von Reichter's schemes seemed to vanish into the night. And the Argentine military scoured the area. With the recent reintroduction of democracy, the country was demanding answers and heads for the carnage inflicted on the city. On top of that, no matter the amount of Sustenance I had nearly drowned in, everyone I knew that had the expertise to make it was gone.

"So it seemed like a good idea to move from the Second World to a First World country. It would get me far away from the Argentine military. And there would be the needed resources to start up a search for my own neurological problems. And with a woman that had a vested interest in being amiable already here, I came to the States."

"My 'mother' served as a basis for Dr. Fowler's existence. A few months of cracking into government data basis, forging paper documents and secreting them in government agencies in the dead of night and Amy Farrah Fowler had always lived in the States. A few years of cramming and Dr. Fowler was published and grant writing...which allowed her to start trying to synthesize my own Sustenance."

Sheldon interrupted. "How much progress has she made?"

"None.", she lamented. "It should be a simple buffering agent to the chemoelectrical transfers between synapses that can survive the digestive process and blood stream transfer without being filtered out before it crosses the blood brain barrier. Plus Dr. Fowler has plenty of clues: color, luminecence, taste, the pH value of alien stomach base. And Dr. Fowler hasn't gotten anywhere close.

"And that tidal wave of Sustenance that should have set me for life? Well, you've seen the symptoms first hand. If the Technos hadn't resurfaced here in Pasadena, I don't know what I would have done. I wouldn't have been able to keep it together for Dr. Fowler to continue looking for a solution."

"So I didn't help.", Sheldon surmised. "And neither did Penny."

"No! No, no, no.", Cyber Six assured. "Dr. Fowler was completely afraid and you helped immensely.

"And that, I suppose, brings me to the answer to your question. I really, really want to be Dr. Fowler. All of you have given her everything she missed out on in life. She has a boyfriend and a best friend and a social circle. Even Adrian was reduced to living vicariously, watching his students. I've wanted love so much...

"That's why Dr. Fowler proposed having a surrogate child with you, you know. I had no idea whether Dr. Fowler could beat the clock on Sustenance. But if I could have a child - even one that couldn't carry to term - that I could dote on and take care of and give a good father to...for when I stopped functioning...then I could have some small part of the human experience. But you all, even Howard and tedious little Leonard, have welcomed her into their lives.

"And I'm not truly Cyber Six. I don't even know who that is. I have a better grasp on who Data Seven is, and he's been gone two thirds of my life.

"So, Dr. Cooper. And don't think that I'm calling you Dr. Cooper and not by your given name as a lack of familiarity or a way of distancing myself. It's just that/"

"It's easier to keep track of which identity is active.", he guessed. "They know different experiences and treat people differently."

The woman relaxed against Sheldon. "Exactly."

"Dr. Cooper, I really want to be Dr. Fowler. If I could, I'd spend the rest of my life here. With all of you."

She still lay under his left arm. She moved her right hand from his stomach to his right hand. Slowly, she dragged it over her eugenically selected, re-enginnered muscles. Her nanobot chemomechanical factories. And held it over her plasteel, rearmored heart. "If you'll have me."

Sheldon nodded against the pillow. "I find your absence offensive."


	9. Say Hi To the Good Guy

1

Leonard and Leslie pulled apart from each other under his covers.

"That's the way to wake up.", Leonard declared.

Leslie smiled in accomplishment. "So it was good for you?"

Then she returned to her typical dreary expression. "Now comfort me emotionally by cuddling."

"Oh...kay.", he conceded. While Leonard was accostumed to Sheldon's bluntness, hearing it from the woman in his bed was still a bit...well, a bit.

He wrapped his arms around her. "God, be a man, Leonard.", Leslie chastised. Her bedmate applied more strength.

"There you go."

"Very comforting: territorial and protective."

Leonard nodded. "Thank you?"

She dragged her fingers along a forearm. "You're more muscular nowadays.", she remarked as if just noticing.

"Well, me and Sheldon have been hitting the Wii Sports and Move pretty hard.", he...well, that's not really bragging is it?

Leslie laid still for a few more seconds. "Alright, enough of that."

The woman slipped out of his arms and his bed with the same ease. By the time Leonard got his glasses back on she was wearing one of his recently bought and just laundered dress shirts. "I'm going to go make you breakfast. Come on out when the olfactory signals whet your appetite."

2

Leonard came out to the commons area with a robe on over his t-shirt and boxers. Leslie had one plate and a glass of orange juice on the kitchen island counter. The cooking area was nearly up to Sheldon's standard of sterility.

"I told you I could be domestic.", Leslie reminded. "Now sit down and let me feed you."

Leonard nodded and moved toward his typical chair. "Wait a minute. Sheldon hasn't bothered you at all?"

"I don't think he came home last night.", Leslie countered.

"But he went to see Amy...", Leonard trailed off. He looked up and to his right. "nah" Then he looked down. His expression showed much more apprehension. He looked up and to his left. "Brrr!" The man quickly turned to his right. "Nah!", he dismissed with a smile.

Leonard sat in his chair. Leslie sat on him. "Now open up.", she instructed while holding out a fork.

Leslie continued talking while Leonard chewed. "You're a big, strong man. Any woman would be lucky to have you but I'm gonna guard you with a jealous fervor because I want you so much. You completely satisfy me, physically and emotionally. You're my man, yes you are."

"I'm not a pet.", Leonard objected.

"Of course you're not Lenny-wenny.", Leslie agreed. "Who's a sexy Lenny-wenny? Who's sexy?"

Leonard looked downcast. "I am."

"Yes you are!", Leslie enforced.

"Now finish breakfast. You need to ravage me again to satiate my incredible lust that's exclusive to you.", she deadpanned.

3

Penny walked into her apartment in running clothes, munching on a donut. She didn't recognize the knock that sounded.

She opened the door. Leslie stood their wearing only her glasses and a shirt Penny had bought for Leonard with only Leonard's keys in hands.

"uh...Hi, Leslie. Is Leonard with you?", she hoped in futility.

"No, just me. I had sex with him, stuffed him full of protiens and grease, then had sex with him again. He's down for the count.", she deadpanned.

"Can I come in? The carpet out here's kinda itchy and I'm not wearing shoes."

"Suuuure.", Penny stated.

"Thanks.", Leslie offered sincerely. "You didn't have to considering that one of my purposes here is to restake a territorial claim on Leonard. As a sexual partner."

"Oh really.", the waitress said while turning away and raising her eyebrows.

Leslie nodded. "I thought the attire would help make that obvious."

"Mn hmm.", Penny agreed. "It did."

"But that's not all.", Leslie continued. "I was told that there was a lot of friction when he was dating Raj's sister."

Penny shrugged. "Yeah, Priya forbade Leonard from hanging out with me."

"Well, I want to assure you that that is not the case with me.", Leslie told her.

Penny turned back to her to regard her anew.

Leslie explained. "I want Leonard to be happy and happy with me. Trying to separate him from his friends and then cheating on him with an ex-boyfriend would be a pretty bitchy thing to do. Hence counterproductive."

Penny giggled. "Okay. You have heard about Priya."

"Look. Who Leonard hangs out with isn't going to be a problem for me.", Leslie assured.

"Right?"

"Right what?", Penny asked. "Oh! No, it's not going to be a problem for you, at all. I just want him to be happy. And from the sounds of it, you seem to be working overtime on that end."

Leslie nodded curtly. "Great! Maybe we could grab a coffee some time and once you confirm me as non-threatening I can join your bonding rituals, like Girl's Night or Clubbing."

Penny smiled akwardly and made her way closer to her baseball bat. "Sure."

"Look, I gotta get to work..."

"Say no more.", Leslie said, saluting her with her ex-boyfriend's keys.

As soon as Leslie was on the other side of the door, Penny exclaimed. "Whoa!"

4

Amy Farrah Fowler and Sheldon were already sharing tea on the kitchen island when Leslie let herself in.

Sheldon furrowed his brow. "Dr. Winkle, why are you utilizing my roomate's keys? And shirt?"

Leslie gave him a look that just screamed, Really? She pulled the shirt collar away to demonstrate the lack of a bra strap.

"I would like an answer, especially one that would clear you from being a tresspasser in my own home.", Sheldon reiterated.

'Dumbass' was nearly out of her mouth before Amy interrupted.

"I believe she has recently fornicated with Dr. Hofstader.", Amy supplied. Then she looked to the hallway that Leslie had not come from and back to the front door. The neuroscientist's eyes flickered until they landed on a conclusion.

"On the roof? Tell me, Dr. Winkle. Is your new relationship faltering so fast that you've engaged in random fetishes in a desperate bid to keep it alive or did you enter your on again/off again relationship in order to satiate your own perversions? In short, are you naturally an exobitionist?"

"It's for a colleague. Not my own personal pleasure."

"I didn't engage in intercourse in public.", Leslie informed. "I was visiting Barbie. We're gonna be cool so we don't have a repeat of Leonard's relationship with Priya. Maybe even have a Girl's Night."

"She welcomed you to Girl's Night?", Amy restated with some apprehension. "Despite you dating Leonard. And I wasn't informed."

"Oh, don't worry.", Leslie said assuringly. She crossed the room and clasped Amy's sweater clad arm just under her elbow exactly over the two, indelible words on her skin. "We'll have some words together really soon."

"I'm off to watch Leonard sleep.", she declared. "It's only seems creepy the moment they wake up, but I'm sure men secretly like it."

The couple watched Leslie saunter down the hallway to Leonard's room.

Sheldon turned to Amy. "How long have you watched me sleep?"

Amy found her tea very tasty and kept her cup to her mouth so she would not have to answer.


	10. Say Hi to the Bad Guy

Amy Farrah Fowler folded her lab coat and crouched. "How are you doing?", she asked.

The panther she spoked to quickly blinked in the code that would set the facial recognition program to ignore his commands until he blinked in the start up code. Data Seven turned to Amy and lowered his head in order to shrug with his fore legs. He glanced back to the wall of monitors, back to her, and then back to the monitors.

One screen showed Sheldon time stamped traffic light camera samples of Sheldon walking into her apartment building atnight in the background and the two of them leaving the next morning.

Amy seemed to shrink inside her sweater. "Yes. He knows."

Data Seven rolled his eyes as if that were obvious. The cat's glare asked another question.

"What? No!", Amy said. "And so what if we did?"

The cat demonstrated his bite.

"You will do no such thing.", she told him. "Now did you find anything remotely like what you were supposed to? Or did you spend the whole weekend forgetting who the older sibling is?"

He growled silently.

The set of screens switched to a smorgasboard of repeating video clips. They depicted the Techno from Friday's attack on CalTech getting into a generic white van. Snippets of its escape played from point to point, stitched together from anything Data Seven could find: ATM cameras, Google street views, weather sattelite coverage... But the van drove into a tunnel and three just like it came out the other side.

A few blinks later and Data Seven brought up the police reports. Each van had been stopped and searched thoroughly. Apparently there was a courier company using that exact model. They were hired to pick up construction equipment from a contracting job on the tunnel. They left when their cash pre-payment turned out to be the most real thing about the client. The original van was found empty in the tunnel. It had been constructed out of a thin air: every single part was machined from stock metal, and not a serial number was to be found.

Amy cocked her head to the side and her eyes grew for just a moment.

Data Seven took a step back. He nodded to the monitors.

"I wasn't saying that it was your fault.", Amy told him. "It's simply frustrating. Maddening even. Someone managed to utilize Von Reichter's techniques and the only clues evaporate. Sometimes literally."

They both started at the knock on the door. The wall of monitors rapidly switched to half pictures of Amy and half pictures of the various meats the grant called on to be fed to the test subject cat.

Amy walked over to the door and unlocked it. "Yes?", she answered.

"Dr. Winkle?"

"That's me.", smiled the shorter scientist, adjusting her purse. "I just came by to answer a few questions you might have."

Amy furrowed her brow. "I understood that you were an optical physicist. What perspective could you add to any of the published work?"

"Well.", she said while entering the room. Then she stopped, staring directly at the panther in the middle of the room.

Amy turned around and started. "Oh my. How did he get out of his cage. I must quickly contain this obviously dangerous animal."

Amy walked quickly to a squeek toy. "Come on boy. Come on. Back into the cage."

Data Seven turned to Amy in exasperation. Amy squeaked the toy rapidly and tossed it back into a cage large enough for him. He glared at her. She glared back. The panther lowered his head and slowly followed the toy into the cage. Amy shut the cage.

Amy made a show of wiping her brow. "Boy. That was a close one."

"Sure was.", Leslie agreed.

"Say...are the capture cameras on these monitors networked anywhere? I mean, is the room data isolated."

Amy nodded.

"Good. The mangy flea bag always had a way of turning every situation into a fight. And me interfacing with your protocols might spark it."

Amy regarded Leslie anew.

"Come on in boys.", she called.

Three Technos walked in.

"Now you were looking for them, right?", Leslie began. "But this is what you really want."

She pulled out a shiny, fresh vial of Sustenance. "Here. Free of charge."

"Jose.", Amy breathed out as she caught the vial.

"It's Josephine!", she snapped. "Or at least it was. That bastard only ever wanted an exact replica just one he could control. He had no room for a daughter or her mother. Let alone one that could surpass him."

"But now we've changed so much haven't we, cyber."

"When did you realize?", she asked.

Leslie giggled. "I forgot how stupid you cybers are."

Amy stood harder. "Sheldon has an eidetic memory, so he could peice together the various/"

"Stop!" Leslie held out her hand while trying to hold back laughter. "Just stop before I bust a seam."

"Dumbass announced he had a vial of Sustenance and you told him it was incredibly dangerous, so he should give it to Cyber Six. He offers it to his first girl friend and that girl friend gushes all over it. 'Safety First' Sheldon Lee Cooper was actually going to endanger his girl friend? He wasn't going to pick up on that? Really?

"I had to cap the vial I allowed him to make off with a passive bug and have these idiots try to keep a low voltage microwave laser turned on it to keep it powered when you weren't testing it. I shouldn't have even bothered with the passivity though. Neither of you were smart enough to even wand it.

"And after Lucas too. As soon as he had a vial you were on him like dour on your new name. It was inevitable that you would find Dumbass and lead me back to yourself. That I didn't even need to walk that far was a surprise."

Amy stood even harder. "You listened to Sheldon and I/"

Leslie waved her hand. "With the thin walls in our boy's apartment, I'm sure Dumbass heard a lot more from me and Leonard. Why do you think he bought the noise cancelling head phones?

"I just don't let anything slip. Sure, your deep cover protocols have done alright. Holding a deep contempt for everything that relies on the very concept of having powers necessitating a secret identity. Compensating for a plethora of weaknesses: the glasses, the bracelet, and that sweater just screams that you hate your figure."

"I could just destroy you.", Amy deadpanned. "That would keep things from slipping."

Leslie just laughed. "Even a constructed weapon system isn't that stupid."

Data Seven flipped the latch on his cage and jumped out.

Leslie unbuttoned her blouse sleeve to reveal dual barrels of a mounted magnetron. "One more snarl out of you and the authorities will be picking fur out of separate halves of the building.

"And that's why you won't even touch me. If it was just trying to get to me through these things, you'd have already tossed something through the cinder block walls. But this isn't Argentina. Once you start ripping buildings apart at the supports because you're engaged in a fist fight that rolls over neighborhoods, everyone is gonna be involved. The local cops actually report to the feds. The news'll spread your exploits and your face around the world. You won't even be able to live free in Singapore.

"If you were going to live at all. As I said: this isn't Argentina. There's no absolute ban on abortion here. You know why? Because these people haven't even decided when their own life starts. Partial birth abortion is illegal across the country by federal legislation despite the justification for abortion at all is an interpretation of their federal constitution freeing women from the responsibility of gestation.

"Me? I'm a mad scientist a hundred years ahead of the curve. That'll get the NSA, CIA and a couple we don't even know about tripping over each other to give me a pardon for anything I might do in a fight against you, let alone the various trespassing/vandalism/etc. that my new constructs have done. Even the little matter of illegal immigration'll just disappear once I'm a classified agent. I'll get a better deal than Hysenberg got for putting a man on the moon.

"You? A construct like you'll be ripped apart fast enough for the invasion of Iran. And who do you think'll care? Are the evangelicals that are so very pro-life going to come the defense of an illegal immigrant, necessary to national security, artificial...false...fake...imitation...like you?"

Data Seven and the Technos growled at each other from behind their respective brunettes. Amy's augmented muscle fibers lost their tension at nearly the same moment Leslie lowered her lasers. The other, less human, entities in the room nearly seemed sad at the lack of prospects for a knock down, drag out fight.

Amy folded her arms. "So if you're not here to fight, then what are you here for?"

"To gloat!", Leslie enjoyed. "You robbed me of my first act of freedom. I wanted...I deserved to kill that Nazi. Not because of what he did to who knows how many. But because I was his child. I was poised to prove that I had overcome him. That I stepped beyond him. That I grew up. But no...

You murdered my father."

"It wasn't that simple.", Amy objected.

"Don't apologize.", Leslie instructed. "It's not like the world isn't better off with the man dead. And besides, you're going to make it up to me."

"What better way to surpass Von Reichter than surpassing his greatest creation? The one that ended him? I shall overcome this immaculate conception.

"You ever wonder why our play acting at humanity falls short? Why every time you pretend to be one of us garners you nothing but pained stares? Why even the person you would like to call your parent looks at you with fear?

"Because you're not. No matter how much your deep cover protocols can maintain this visage of Amy Farrah Fowler...no matter how well your neurons manage to back up your alleged educational experiences...You are not one of us. You are not a person. Let alone a good one.

"And what better prize? The ultimate war criminal tried to turn me into a tiny version of himself. I was the most dangerous crime lord in South America. And as a child!"

"I know.", Amy objected. "You tried to drive a five meter drill through my head and set me on fire."

"You actually did drop a Chicago-style bridge on my head and you did set me on fire.", Leslie countered. "So let's call it even before we get into some old comic book/"

"You wrecked a fifth of Meridiana.", Amy reminded.

"So did you.", Leslie dismissed.

"Do you see it? You can't even accept personal responsibility for all the horrors you've inflicted on those around you. Let alone actually care about anyone."

"I care about them!", Amy declared.

"Is that how you process it?", Leslie asked with actual curiosity. "Does that squishy, eugenically approved, epi-genetically designed processor in your skull run it's combat algorithms that effectively?

"You're a weapon. You're faking being a person. And you can't even realize why, because you were never designed for that realization. Even when you decided that romance would help aid your cover, you chose the least human thing you could find. Doesn't Dumbass still refer to himself as Homo Novus while not understanding any human motivation?

"And I'm going to let you keep this sad charade. I won't tell anyone what you really are, cyber. I'm gonna make sure your thirst is well quenched with my own special blend.

"Because I want to see the look on that pretty face that my father designed. I'm going to actually be in love. I'm going to be the best person the world has ever seen. I'm going to enjoy a well adjusted emotional life. And when you realize you can't but have no hope of merely calculating out why, even with this neuroscience researcher cover...

"That look will be worth the world not quaking in fear at the mention of my name. It will be worth the untold riches I could have forced them to lavish me with. The statues they would have worshiped at. When you realize that I'm a good person and you never could make the attempt...I will have finally won."


	11. At Least They Aren't Shooting

1

Amy joined Sheldon on the couch. Sheldon was in his spot. Amy sat next to him. She turned to stare blankly at Bernadette, whose small size coupled with Howard's and Sheldon's thiness allowed the couch a capacity of four.

Bernadette looked back at her.

She tried to smile against the whithering, soulless stare.

"Today is Monday.", Amy reminded. "Sheldon goes to the Cheesecake Factory with his friends, and Howard, on Mondays."

"Okay...", Bernadette allowed.

"Why is Howard here with you and not the Cheesecake Factory?", she continued.

"Well, we're going to have a Couples Night.", Bernadette answered. "Some roller blading or something."

"You're having a Couples Night?", Amy confirmed.

Howard's eyes widened. "Here we go."

"Sheldon and I are a couple.", Amy informed.

"Well, Amy/"

"We are.", Sheldon informed while keeping both eyes on the television. "I have a thiry one page contract notarized to that effect."

"I didn't mean to doubt that, sweetie.", Bernadette said helpfully. "We just had planned to go with Leonard and/"

"And I need to ask him just like I did with Penny and our initial Girls Night.", Amy surmised. "I will do so immediately."

Amy got up from the couch and walked to the bathroom.

B = 0  
Label 1:  
A = 0  
Label 2:  
Knock  
Add 1, A  
BNE A, 3, Label 2:  
Say "Leonard"  
Add 1, B  
BNE B,3, Label 1:  
End

"That's not what I intended.", Bernadette realized.

"Apology accepted.", Sheldon assured her. "I'm nothing if not adaptable.

"I hope you've been craving Cheesecake Factory."

Howard patted Bernadette's hand as she lamented. "Ever since I stopped working there many times a week for several years."

Sheldon smiled. "Yay.", he passed off as a cheer.

Leonard rushed out of the bathroom into the common area still combing his hair. "We're bringing our girl friends to the Cheesecake Factory with Sheldon and Amy?", he asked Howard.

"Yes.", Sheldon asked with a confused expression. "You ought to know this. Wasn't Couples Night your idea?

"And you're inexplicably and possibly inexcusably wrong on another count: Bernadette is Howard's fiancee not his girlfriend."

Leonard looked fit to explode. Then Leslie walked in.

"She's coming with us.", Amy said realizing.

Leonard walked to Leslie and guided her into the room with his arms. "She's my girlfriend, Amy."

"I would have thought telling Dr. Fowler that I was having sex with you would have been enough of a hint.", Leslie deadpanned. "That and the emotional support and the occassional ego stroke."

Leonard did not seem to notice how Leslie and Amy had locked eyes. Bernadette and Howard had.

He continued. "There's been a slight change of plans, Leslie. We're going to start off the evening at the Cheesecake Factory."

Sheldon objected. "I don't see how this is a change of plans. We always go to the Cheesecake Factory on Monday, after we discovered a superior meat to bun ratio to that of Big Boy's fare."

Leslie held Amy's stare as she spoke. "Oh, that's fine, honey bunch."

Amy held Leslie's stare as she spoke. "The evening's plans were changed by me so that I may cater to Sheldon's schedule."

"Again, what change?", Sheldon objected.

Leslie smirked. "Like I said, 'that's fine'. The Cheesecake Factory allows me to cater to my man's non imaginary dietary needs."

"Well the waitress is my best friend!"

"Well my man repeatedly placed his penis in that best friend and achieved orgasm!"

The engaged couple turned to each other in confusion. Maybe abject horror.

2

The six were seated at a rounded table. Leslie, if not Leonard, was comfortable as she had knocked their chairs together and draped Leonard's arm over the back of hers. Leslie raised her eyebrow as if to challenge Amy to find such comfort. Amy turned to Sheldon who was swinging his elbows a few inches from his torso to ensure enough room for the properuse of eating utensils, despite his expected hamburger. Amy glared at Leslie's bemused expression.

Howard and Bernadette were not comfortable at all.

"How goes the science boys and girls?", Penny greeted. She started filling up the water glasses on the table.

"I'm so glad you asked.", Sheldon began. "Once I explain, ahem, the science in terms a community college drop out like you can understand perhaps you can explain it to Dr. Winkle in terms she can understand."

Leonard began to pull his arm away so Leslie could squabble with Sheldon. Leslie patted his hand and kept his arm in place. "You're right Dr. Cooper. I'm as distracted with my new boy friend as a sophomore in the throes of the slump."

Leslie then quickly pecked Leonard's cheek.

And immediately turned to gauge Amy's reaction.

"Well at least you admit it.", Sheldon continued. "My Amy has recently single authored a paper that was presented on the cover of Neuron."

Leslie, somehow, imitated the condescending smile of self-important intelligence regarding its lesser that Sheldon was known for throughout academia. Eerily imitated. "An achievement in the field of biology, applicable to only one species of one biology in all the universe? How...quaint."

Amy bristled. Sheldon nearly shrugged in agreement before remembering what that sentiment cost him the last time. Leonard started to catch on to the under current. Leslie continued to look as pleased as punch.

"I really like your breasts, Penny.", Howard blurted. "For the love of God, break my nose and tell my fiancee to dump me for being a pervert."

"Or I could ask about Penny's day instead.", Leonard suggested.

"Whatever.", Howard pleaded. Bernadette lovingly rubbed his back.

"Well, I shouldn't really hang around all that long with Leonard's new girl friend.", Penny stated.

"No, it's no issue.", Leonard objected.

"Of course not.", Leslie added before speaking mostly to Amy. "Remember the conversation we had. We worked it all out how you and Leonard could stay close friends. Even we could become close friends. Wouldn't you just love that?"

"Well at least I never slept with any of Leonard's friends. Howard for example.", Amy spat.

All eyes went to Howard. He winced as Bernadette's loving hand transformed to vengeful claw.

"What predicated that?", Sheldon wondered.

Penny swayed cautiously. "I'll just go put your orders in."

"You haven't taken them.", Sheldon reminded.

Amy smiled. "My boyfriend will have a barbecue bacon cheeseburger with the barbecue sauce, bacon and cheese on the side with a lemonade. I know what he'll want because I care about him and we're happy together."

Leslie raised and eyebrow and kept her smile. "I would have thought Dumbass was easily predictable, like some kind of...oh, I don't know...machine. With programmed instructions that would be documented in some form...like a Relationship Agreement or something.

"Now, Leonard. He's a real person so this is gonna be harder. Hmm...how's the salmon salad today, Penny?"

Leonard lowered his lip but then closed it. "You know, salmon salad sounds pretty good."

"And it won't fill you up too much for tonight's...activities.", Leslie continued.

She turned back to everyone else. She placed her hand on Leonard's chest and blushed on cue. "Oh, I mean roller skating. Silly me.

"That is all couples do together. Right?"

Sheldon sighed. "Well, apparently they do tonight."

"uh, Amy?", Penny asked.

"I'm not very hungry.", she lamented.

"Well, I'm famished.", Leslie countered.

3

Wolowitz waved the air attempting to clear it of Sheldon's disinfectant spray. Amy sat next to him staring daggers at Leslie. Leslie seemed to bask in it.

Bernadette flew through lacing her skates up, making her the second done after Leonard. "Alright, I'm ready. Come on, Leonard."

"Huh?", the physicist uttered as Bernadette pulled him into the rink, leaving the others behind. Leonard pin wheeled his arms to keep from falling. On after a moment of righting himself did he even locate Bernadette. She showcased exactly why ice-skating would be right behind her career choice of microbiology and physics by spinning in an orbit around him.

"Speed it up, slowpoke.", she chastised. The blonde twirled behind him and pushed him to a speed twice as fast as he was accustomed.

"Wait a minute.", he called out.

Bernadette appeared from behind him. She turned to face him and skated backwards, occasionally pulling on his clothing or his hair to speed him up.

"Wait for what?", she began. "I thought this was how you liked to be treated. I mean, Leslie sure pulls you around like this and you seem to enjoy it."

"That's different.", Leonard objected.

Bernadette favored him with a look of disdain. "Because she's having sex with you? That justifies pushing your buttons like an iPhone?"

"An iPhone doesn't have...ah, never mind.", Leonard dismissed before he began. "Look, Leslie and I may take non conventional roles in our relationship. But that's to be expected with people as intelligent as we are: we'll occasionally behave in unprecedented ways."

"Telling a mate what to do and when to do it while believing not doing so at any moment is a grave concession while distancing the mate from his friends isn't unprecedented.", Bernadette told him. "It's fairly well documented as varying forms of abuse."

"Leslie doesn't abuse me.", he objected.

"Because you're bruise free?", she continued. "Look, I know I'm stepping too far. But...Just know that we're here for you: Howie and me, Raj, Penny, everyone...okay? We'll all side with you when you kick her to the curb and you can stay with Raj until you can get a restraining order."

4

Amy, Leonard, Leslie and Sheldon traipsed up the stairs to the men's apartment.

"It's time for me and my boy toy to retire to our boudiare.", Leslie stated with showmanship as Leonard opened the  
door. "So we'll have to bid you two 'adieu'."

"Good night, Dr. Winkle.", Sheldon replied. He turned to walk back down the stairs as the door was closed in his face. "Wait a minute...", Sheldon paused.

Sheldon realized he had been had the exact moment a single golden strand entered Amy's vision.

"Hi, Bestie!", she greeted cheerfully.

"Yeah.", Penny dismissed. The waitress dragged herself by the banister.

Amy continued. "We had a totally rockin' time at the roller rink. I only fell twice and Sheldon held my hand, like, the entire night."

"I had to sanitize the micro scrapes that occur in even non-bruising impacts twice already. I certainly wasn't going to let you bang yourself up all evening. You would have exhausted my entire supply of Purel.", Sheldon chastised. He completely missed the wink and smile Amy gave Penny.

"I completely agree.", Penny said - a little because she was not listening but mostly she found that agreeing with smart people shut them up faster.

Amy furrowed her brow. She reached out with a now familiar grip.

"Oh no you don't!", Penny warded off. "You hit me with a Vulcan nerve pinch again and I'll roll down these steps until my face is plastered on doors outside."

Amy nodded. "Then you better come in with us and let me do this in Sheldon's bed."

"Excuse me?", Sheldon attempted.

"Touching other females is left up to the Girlfriend's discretion in the Relationship Agreement.", Amy observed.

Sheldon shook his head. "Just because it wasn't codified doesn't mean the spirit isn't tested."

"And you remember sleeping in Penny's bed when you were locked out of your apartment and homesick."

"Of course I do.", Sheldon conceded.

"And under the social protocols of friendship, favors are returned not only upon need but freely."

"I've been educating myself.", Sheldon nodded.

"So it's settled.", Amy said happily. "Come along Penny. Let's get you out of that mustard yellow and into my hands."

Penny clopped along in her clogs under Amy's direct guidance to Sheldon's bed room.

Sheldon frowned. "I need to stop bragging about my eidetic memory and predilections toward routine."

5

Sheldon felt he had been forced to drag his work chair (which was strictly for work!) into his bedroom so that he would have a place in his own room (in which no one is supposed to be). Amy assured him that the two women he...well, not regularly but at least repeatedly expressed affection for would share his own bed with him. Penny was way to over worked to bother to object.

Sheldon felt he had been forced to drag his work chair (which was strictly for work!) into his bedroom so that he would have a place in his own room (in which no one is supposed to be).

"Honestly, Sheldon: most men would kill to join their girl friend and Penny in bed.", Amy continued.

"Heyyyooh!", Penny's objection was slain under Amy's bleeding edge knowledge of human anatomy.

Sheldon regarded the two. "Most men think some sort of deity aids them on a regular basis up to and including helping win football games while letting wars, starvation and disease run rampant all over the planet."

Amy frowned. Then her eyes narrowed.

Penny's eyes opened wide. She never found quite the self control to scream so the room filled with jagged moans. Parts of her curled into Amy's ministrations and then fell limp as other muscles were subjected to her treatments. Eventually, the blonde moaned herself to sleep.

Amy's eyes never left Sheldon.

Sheldon's eyes never left his Batman comic.

"Alright, I'm done.", Amy conceded.

Sheldon stood and placed his comic book back in its place in his collection. "Finally. Now I can...

"She's in 27% of my spot.", he complained, pointing at a thoroughly imobile Penny.

"She may have to stay the night.", Amy cautioned. "After all, you know as well as I that it would be physically impossible for me to carry her across the hall to her apartment."

"Goshdarnit.", Sheldon cursed.

"Do not worry.", Amy comforted. "I have excellent spatial reasoning skills. I can tuck you in adequately."

"Alright.", Sheldon sighed.

A few moments later Sheldon was indeed under his covers. Penny still lay unconscious on one side of the bed.

Amy knelt over Sheldon, holding his eye mask as well as his noise cancelling head phones.

"Good night, Sheldon.", she told him. His girl friend pressed her lips to his.

"Good night, Amy Farrah Fowler.", he replied.

Amy looked down on him for a bit. When he was about to speak, she interrupted. "You know I want to engage in physical intimacy more often than prearranged social graces."

Sheldon looked into her eyes. "I understand."

She pressed her lips against his again.

"I also would like you to engage me in these acts, as an initiator.", Amy continued.

Her face hung over his. Her hair hung around the two like a hospital bed curtain. Sheldon craned his neck and pressed his lips into hers.

"Please, Sheldon.", Amy teased while rubbing his belly. "We have company."

She fitted his sleeping mask over his eyes. "Have five restful REM cycles that will lead to full cognitive functioning tomorrow."

"Thank you, I shall.", Sheldon replied as she placed his head phones over his ears.

Amy stood to her full height. She basked in the smiles of her boy friend and her best friend sleeping peacefully. Sheldon was cuccooned as per his protocol. Penny was flippantly sprawled out and passionately snoring.

Amy nodded in satisfaction. Show's you, Jose!

6

Leslie looked up from her bottle of water she had just gotten from Leonard's shelf in the refrigerator. Amy came down the apartment's hall as fully dressed as she had been all evening. Leslie tugged on hem of one of Leonard's larger tees.

"You do know the only thing you're supposed to put in the best friend is your confidence?", Leslie teased.

Amy scowled as she went on. "See, you sleep with the boy friend and/"

"and come a step closer to eating the appliance you got that water from.", Amy warned.

Leslie giggled. "You know what? You're absolutely right."

She spun in her tee shirt. "I'm obviously unarmed. Even if my Technos were watching over me, there's no way they could stop you in time to save me. And besides, the flee bag would have taken them out before we got to the roller rink because, of course, I have no contingency plan for him.

"And I'm telling the absolute and complete truth about all of it."

Amy took a step toward her. Leslie took another confident swig of water. Amy...

She stopped.

"Did dumbass give in to his human desires at all?", Leslie continued. "Or are neither of you programmed for anything actually soulfull?"

Amy backed away.

"That's a good cyber.", Leslie gloated. "Now I'm gonna go have fun with my man and do my best to wake up your wind up doll and Barbie. You can show yourself out."

Leslie took Amy's good mood back with her to Leonard's room, leaving the taller standing in the communal area with...

Well, if not nothing, it was not much.


	12. So They're Shooting

1

"And that's why Penny was running from my room making not only unfounded, but remarkably ill-educated pleas to Dionysus.", Sheldon finished.

"'Omigod, I'll like, never so much as use mouth wash again.' isn't just a plea.", Leonard countered.

The two continued towards the entrance to their apartment building, only to find their girl friends waiting for them.

"Hey, Leslie.", Leonard greeted happily and respectfully.

"What are you doing here, Amy Farrah Fowler?", Sheldon demanded formally.

The two women turned from glaring at each other to assuring their boyfriends that she (and I cannot stress this enough, not her) wanted to 'just be' with her boyfriend. So after she got cleaned up everything in her lab, she came right over only to find her here.

This bickering went on so long that Penny eventually came back from work after her first single shift in a week. "Hey guys.", she greeted.

Leslie and Amy gave her a quick head nod. "S'up."

Sheldon turned to her. Instead of speaking, his brain processed an indistinct sound cut him off. "What's that?", he wondered.

Then everyone turned to the ice cream truck turning onto the street. So all five of them saw the large, green men readying weapons for the world's highest caliber drive-by.

Leslie ran directly into a stunned Leonard. She dragged him to the ground.

Sheldon turned into Amy's one armed grasp as if he had been trained for it. Amy used the extra milliseconds to spin around Penny, snatching the waitress into her grasp as well.

Leonard and Leslie were well below the hail of bullets that tore through the glass enrty way of the building. Penny and Sheldon screamed at the top of the lungs on their roller coaster ride to the roof thanks to Amy super human leap.

2

Sheldon rolled on the roof, holding his ribs. His great intellect understood that nothing had cracked. But the rapidly forming bruises took up the rest of his consciousness.

Penny had already experienced tosses that were expected to hospitalize her. One does not press third for champion in Nebraska's junior rodeo without angering animals ten times your size. Let alone when the bull expresses that anger. And hence, she had rolled much better and dealt with her scrapes and pounding. What her mind could not seem to deal with was Amy.

"I will destroy her.", the sweater clad woman stated mostly to herself. The somehow super strong scientist shook in anger on the rooftop. A balled fist slowly crept up to Amy's frustrated face.

Her scream tore a hole in the night.

Her fist tore a hole in the now defunct, brick elevator shaft.

And that is when Penny noticed the smoldering tear in the back of Amy's sweater. That exposed the tear in Amy's back. And the two still glowing bullets stopped by what should have been a merely bone shoulder blade exposed the underlying pseudo-muscle.

"um", Penny's lips moved. "Amy? You're...sort of on fire."

Amy's head darted back and forth as if she could crane her neck enough to see her back. She reached and tore off the

piece of sweater. Amy growled and threw the rag to the roof.

Only when her hair fell out of her beret and over her face as she stomped out the glowing embers of wool did Penny piece it together. "You're the cape. Omigod: you're the cape!"

Sheldon rolled over. "Penny."

"It was you!", she restated.

"Penny?", he called again.

"You're/"

"Penny!", Sheldon called out.

"Omigod: Sheldon!", Penny skidded to the ground next to him. "Where are you hurt?"

The girl started to run her hands all over Sheldon. "Don't try to talk."

Sheldon's face contorted from pain to its usual irritated glare. Then he softened. "Penny.

"Amy Farrah Fowler is still your best friend."

The girl turned to point at the powered creature that had no compunction at dragging them through a flight to the roof and was angrier about her damaged sweater than the bullets that damaged it. She ended up pointing at the socially awkward woman she had always known getting her hair back in control.

Amy walked up to the two. "Sheldon, where are you hurt?"

"The muscle external to the floating ribs was compressed and burst blood vessels, particularly in the skin, are beginning to bruise.", he replied.

"No trouble breathing? No shooting pains, searing pains, bursts of heat?", Amy continued.

Sheldon shook his head. "You did not crack any of them. And you avoided my abdomen so my digestive track was spared the extreme pressures."

Amy smiled in thankfulness. "That's good."

"I did mention that you were on fire. Because you were shot." Penny interrupted. "Right?"

The brunette shrugged. "You'd be surprised how accustomed you can get to that.

"On another, more pressing note..."

"More pressing than, 'Omigod Amy: You're on fire and shot.'?"

"We need to get out of sight. And I don't know how compromised your apartments are now. I think we can still go to mine, or at least until I figure out what just happened and what it meant.

"Bestie, think you can keep it together enough to sew up my back?", Amy inquired. "I know the brain gets to you."

Penny nodded. "Yeah. I think."

Amy frowned. "You don't have to come if you don't want to. I understand that you'd be taking a lot of risks without answers. And you're probably not in the right state of mind to decide one way or the other."

The blonde shook her head. "No way. Whisk us away, bestie."

Amy blushed. "I was sort of hoping you could drive?"

"Oh yeah, Sheldon.", Penny said considering. "Is there something we can do before moving him?"

Amy carefully took hold of Penny's finger and used the fingernail to scratch Sheldon.

"Ow!", he exclaimed and looked at the barely bleeding wound. Instantly, he fainted.

"That should help.", Penny agreed.


	13. One More Step

1

"I'm not hit.", Leonard tried to assure Leslie. Leslie had dragged him to his bed and ran her hands all over him repeated.

"I'm so relieved.", Leslie admitted. She collapsed into his arms. Leonard could feel her heart beat slowing down.

"Once I saw what was happening...everything just slowed down.", she continued. "My entire life flashed before my eyes. And I realized something: you are the best part of it. That's why I just threw myself at you. Even if they got me, at least I'd still have you...in a way."

Leonard blinked at revalation. Leslie continued to let her hands wander his body.

"You know that I've done everything for you.", Leslie reminded him. "I've aided your research. I've turned this very bed red hot. If you asked me for an electron volt, I'd give you a star's magnetic field spin in a Dyson's sphere.

"You just mean so much to me."

Leonard reached for his phone. "We should really call the police about getting shot at."

"I mean it, Leonard.", Leslie cut him off as she redirected his grasp to her body. "I care for you so much it scares me sometimes. I wake up already anticipating you: your smile, your touch. You're everything I've ever wanted Leonard."

He closed his arms around her after her admission. Leslie now spoke more into his shoulder. "You know, you could share anything with me. I would never run away. I have no scientifically illiterate doofus to run back to. I'd just accept...whatever you told me. I'd hold onto it and never let it go. You have nothing to fear with telling me your desires...or how you feel. Even if it's about me."

Just one final step before her final victory over Cyber Six.

2

Penny had no idea how she got where she was. Sure, she had driven the super powerful Amy...Cyber...friend (?) back to her apartment along with her semi-unconscious boyfriend. And Sheldon had explained (even if she did not understand) enough of this...person's (?) abilities to justify not taking her (maybe that was a lie as well) to a hospital. And he had also assured that it was only his own blood that sent him into a tizzy, so he was perfectly qualified to perform surgical repairs on his girl-friend-slash-cobbled-together-weapon-system...especially since it, er, SHE, was still awake and talkative (and surprisingly vengeful) despite being shot (so maybe not that surprisingly?).

So now Penny was holding Amy's bathroom mirror so Cyber Six could peer into her own compact and catch enough of a reflection of her own bone and the bullets that tried to penetrate it to guide a physicist through triage surgery. She stood listening to what may have well been pig-Farsi since the girl friend and boy friend couldn't seem to call a body part by anything outside of Grey's Anatomy.

A few years ago and she would not have even followed the conversation if someone suggested this would be happening to her. But since then, Penny's circle of friends turned from the other failed Hollywood hopefuls that only sobered up to afford alcohol with a service job like herself into a group of people who held jobs she had a hard time spelling. For every time they had nearly offended her senses with Howard's perviness or Sheldon's obnoxiousness or Raj's actual, not playing or anything, selective mutism, her new friends showed her something so amazing she had not realized it was possible. In a few months, she will have punched an actual astronaut in the nose. Lasers were no longer just something that caused the explosions in alien invasion movies. She now knew passion was not just bedroom performance but the nigh obsession with one's work, that drove people to sleep in their labs or sometimes not at all.

So Amy was a bioweapon. Then Penny guessed that made her a bioweapon's best friend.

"Can you please hold the mirror steady?", Sheldon reminded. "Your corn fed, Nebraska physique should be more than adequate for this, although menial, necessary role."

"Please, Sheldon.", Amy said while laying face down on her coffee table. "Even Altea chased golden apples."

"The humanities, Amy?", he chastised. "You must of lost more fluids than I thought. Drink some more orange juice."

3

Data Seven was angry.

Police had cordoned off the area so there was no chance to get enough of a smell for a lead. Well, a lead other than Jose who was marking Cyber Six' male's packmate like he was a tree in the very center of her territory.

And Cyber Six had made him promise not to shred that lead to pieces.

So all he could do is try to wait here, across the street from Cyber Six' male's den or run around the range guessing where Cyber Six could be. Her blood scent did not seem to lead anywhere else though. And if he was already too late...

Well, Jose...Josephine...Leslie...his next meal was right there.


	14. So?

1

"I'm not letting you go alone.", Penny told her. "You were just shot."

Cyber Six finished adjusting the cape around her. "And thanks to your and Dr. Cooper's aid I will be through healing by the time I arrive instead of tomorrow morning. Now I thank you for your concern. But I think that we can all agree that I'm better equipped to deal with this than the local authorities."

The blonde was adamant. "Don't make me go all Junior Rodeo on you."

Cyber Six' visible eyebrow rose. She grasped the couch, that still had Sheldon on it, with one hand and palm pressed it above her head. "Well, I'm warmed up?", she asked.

"If you're repeatedly injured in the same tissue area, the likelihood of telemere sheering of the DNA due to constant inflammation is going to increase your odds of cancer.", Sheldon warned. "And the treatment of that will make the discovery of your true nature nearly inevitable."

The couch dropped to the floor. "Just who is the biologist here, Dr. Cooper?"

"Dr. Fowler is, Cyber Six.", he replied.

The cyber turned back to Penny. "This is why I can't stand comic books."

"Look, I'm going. I won't be surprised this time. I'm more than capable of taking care of myself."

Sheldon scoffed. "You've proved mildly capable of surviving the antagonism of a child gang lord, at only the cost of Meridiana's infrastructure...human population...fauna...flora...microbes...weather patterns. *ahem* Your interactions with the adult mad scientist has left your friends compromised and yourself wounded."

"What would you have me do?", Cyber Six exhaled. "Leave her out there to attack again? Build enough technos to stop raiding and start holding territory? Invent something that leaves the redefined coastline of Argentina a happy memory?"

Sheldon glared at the caped woman. "I would have you bring Amy back to me."

2

Cyber Six landed on the two physicist's window sill silently. The police and rubberneckers below did not spot the black shape against the night sky.

She slowly opened the window and gently stepped inside. The only sounds she heard were Dr. Hofstaeder's gently breathing in sleep, Dr. Cooper's back up back up hard drive spinning and the two refrigerators on the fourth floor humming away in their respective apartments.

Josephine was no where to be found.

She continued into the apartment. It was easier to feel the weight behind her rather than hear the paw falls. "Where is she, Data Seven?"

A resigned meow was her answer.

"Then onto the lair of the beast.", she decided.

The panther walked up to her with Dr. Hofstaeder's smartphone in his jaws. The screen was lit up showing Leslie Winkles phone number, e-mail and home address.

3

Subtlety had gone away with her patience. The solid oak door flew off the hinges as Cyber Six stalked into

an...empty...apartment? She sprinted from room to room as Data Seven applied his nose to the floorboards.

"Dammit.", she stomped.

4

It had taken two hours to evade the security at Cal Tech without injuring any of the additional police officers that had been stationed since this all began. Cyber Six' black wardrobe and Data Seven's coal fur were running out of nighttime. And the bitch wasn't even in her lab or her office. Even when it would be Josephine's total advantage to have high technology in her high technology lab, let alone lasers in and optical physicist's workspace. Even though Dr. Winkle was a known employee with special clearance here while even Dr. Fowler was not.

She couldn't be anywhere else...that could be found tonight. And without the capacity to search until another sunset reinstated her 'anonymity', her enemy would have another day to prepare. Rest where Cyber Six had to present the visage of a neuroscientist. Have minions prepare while Data Seven would have to resume his cover of a study animal. Josephine's greatest weapon-her plans-would spiral beyond anyone's capacity to imagine given that much time, that much...opportunity.

And Cyber Six would have to give her all of it.


	15. The End Already

After Cyber Six' fruitless night of searching Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler was beginning to wonder why she kept trying. Josephine 'Jose' Von Richter was in her lab before she was the next day. Most every viable workspace in her lab was filled.

"You win.", Josephine told her. "Well, that's not exactly right. 'I lose' is more accurate."

The shorter woman slid off the far counter and sauntered up to Amy, as if she couldn't shake the smugness from her step.

The neurobiologist was more confused than she was contemplating Sheldon's desire for a romantic relationship despite his lack of a sexual orientation. "What do mean by you lose?"

"I understand your confusion.", Josephine replied. "But don't worry. I'm much smarter than you'll ever be. So I can explain it to you."

"I was competing to prove I was a better person than you. And to do so, I was going to rub being in love in your face. Love is possibly the greatest thing humans have to offer: it's love of the future that makes us concerned about global warming and being a single planet species, it's love that sends that 70 cents a day to Rwanda from Tallahassee... It's love that allows us to romance undiagnosed autistics without the endocrine system to lust after anything that wasn't manufactured to appeal to nerds.

"It's not love that shoots at the subject of one's affections to prove itself. The fact that I would put Leonard in that kind of danger...phew. I mean, I'm glad my technos missed. But they shouldn't have had to miss. They shouldn't have been shooting to begin.

"I am that psychopath you accused me of being in Meridiana. Heh, I suppose you've always been better at neuroscience than literature-your inflection sucks. Even now, I find myself thinking more about my plan going awry than whether the added stress is going to aggravate Dr. Hofstaeder's asthma. Or at least giving a damn. I really could care less about everyone I've ever met than I do about the resume I'm going to turn in at Langley.

"Now I don't believe for one second that you actually _do_ care. I don't think you care about anything. But you've never shot at Dr. Cooper. I actually ran the math: I don't think you will. A weapon pretending to love is distinctly closer to what I was aiming for than someone with the advantage of actually being alive and using live ammunition on half the people she's on a first name basis with.

"And yes, Dumbass is a first name. I rarely ever call him Dr. Dumbass anymore.

"So, are you anything more than a weapon? Are you capable of caring? As far as I can discern: no. You're a bioweapon. But you at least deserve the chance to try. Maybe not from the world at large. But I can see the argument that I owe it to you."

Josephine gestured to the vials of Sustenance that filled Amy's lab table. "That should keep you fed until you can produce your own."

"I still haven't determined how to replicate any.", Dr. Fowler complained.

The mad scientist smiled. "Yeah, that's why I wrote down the instructions."

She thumbed over her shoulder at the filled white boards covered in long sequences of seven letters.

"Those don't even come close to describing any chemicals I've found in Sustenance.", Amy told her.

"Of course not.", von Richter stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It's the genetic code for tailored bacteria populations in symbiotic relationship producing Sustenance as a byproduct. I had to bump the DNA to seven structures instead of four in order to get the additional durability for the mylon sheath coatings that your accelerated nerves need. You aren't so stupid that can't resequence E-coli and breed colonies in secret, right?"

The repeatedly published, future Nobel prize winner nodded. "I think I can manage."

"Good.", Josephine finalized. "Good.", she repeated with a nod.

"Well, that's that. I don't think you'll see me again." Josephine strolled to the door.

And that's when Amy grabbed her. She used her superior strength, speed, and reflexes to pull the much smaller person into a hug.

Josephine sighed. "I'm only comforted by this because increases my blood pressure without additional exertion. This trick works on a multitude of mamilian species. You're pretending to study the human brain. I know that you know this. This isn't an action driven by emotion. It's merely an attempt to pacify me so that I won't be a threat in the future."

Amy kept holding tight. "But by your pacification, you won't be a threat to Sheldon."

Josephine regarded her anew. "There may be hope for you yet, Cybe...Amy."

"And don't worry about Little Leonard.", Amy continued. "I think he'll find a comfortable sexual partner shortly enough."

"Dammit.", Josephine agreed. "I hadn't even considered his feelings about my disappearing on him. Again. Yet again. I really am a psycopath."

"Good-bye, Dr. Winkle.", Amy said as she let go.

"Fare well, Amy. If you can be good...at least fare well."


	16. Epilogue

Amy bounded up the stairs to Apt. 4A. Then she recalled that Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler can't jump a single flight of stairs, let alone many, and started stepping up them again. She was just so happy.

Sheldon said he wanted to spend New Year's Eve (and a portion of New Year's Day technically, even though it was only the earliest part of the morning). She could honestly complain about being cold (after all, His Spot was closer to the heater than anywhere she could sit) and therefore black mail him into cuddling with her. And kissing one's girlfriend at midnight was a non-optional social convention!

Which was why she was surprised at meeting Penny at the top of the stairs. Penny was wearing an outfit that looked...strange, even on Penny. Her hair was covered by a cropped red wig. The clothes were matching in an unsettling green: over sized jersey, giant shorts and flip flops.

Before she could even ask, Penny beat her to the punch. "Oh, Amy. You are dressed perfectly."

Amy was wearing a typical (to her, at least) sweater over men's shirt, plain skirt and tights along with her glasses holding her flat black hair. Her eyes narrowed. "Alright, who are you and what have you done to my bestie."

That tone had an entirely new meaning after what Penny had experienced with her _very surprsingly, some might say appallingly _strong friend. "No, it's me, Amy. It's just we're going to win the costume contest for certain."

Amy leaned close to Penny and whispered. "You know exactly why I don't wear costumes."

Penny leaned back in and beamed. "So it's good you're not wearing one, right?", she replied with a wink.

And that's when Zach clomped up the stairs dressed as a dalmation. "Ruff, ruff, ruff! Am I right, ladies. We have a title to defend."

Amy continued with Penny. "There's a contest? So other people are going to see this?"

"But I don't want to be Woodstock.", Raj was heard caterwauling from within Leonard and Sheldon's apartment. Raj came out in a yellow body suit, yellow mohawk, yellow beak and yellow feathers trailing on strings behind him. "Woodstock su-huks!"

"Amy, splendid Marcy cosplay. Very authentic.", Sheldon told her. Her boyfriend followed Raj out, wearing a blue tube of a dress and a pig tailed wig.

Before she could comment, Howard and Bernadette emerged from Penny's apartment. "You see, the security blanket is actual space age polymer, actually developed by NASA/" "/because you're actually going to outer space. I know, Howie.", Bernadette finished for him. She wore her hair in pig tails and had on a light blue dress with white flats. Howard wore a bald cap with a red shirt that had black striping that matched his shorts.

Leonard finally arrived on scene. "That's everybody right?", he asked. He had on a bald cap with a yellow shirt and one of the most distinctive black zig zags that ever matched a pair of black shorts.

"Wow. Good costume, Amy."

Amy glared at him.

Penny smiled at Leonard. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you assigned who was going to dress up as who just so I might act like I had a crush on you, Chuck."

"Well the problem with that is that Charlie Brown had his heart set on an off screen red haired girl from next door, opposite of where Lucy and Linus live...I'll just shut up."

Penny nodded.

"Well, if it wasn't his idea to enter me into a costume contest without my knowing and use my entire social circle to pressure me, whose was it?", Amy demanded.

Everyone hurriedly pointed at Sheldon. He nodded, grateful everyone appreciated his contributions. "While I, as a perfectly acceptable boyfriend, understand you're typically not the free spirit to normally wear a costume, I also dallied in your field and determined that if I could utilize your everyday attire in a group costume with your support network you could overcome your adversarial stance with the practice when nothing untoward happened as a result."

Sheldon glared at Zach. "Nothing untoward will happen, isn't that correct, Zachary?"

"Of course not.", Zach casually shrugged. "Because there's only toward, which is forward. Backward's just backward. There's no such thing as un-toward."

Penny nearly felt the collective wince. Then she was nearly sucked into the wake.

Amy had rushed Sheldon at the absolute maximum that could be believably human, throwing her arms around him and kissing him.

Sheldon frowned. "That counts against the kiss socially obligated at midnight."

"No, it doesn't.", Amy countered. "Now let's go win this contest.

"um...Where is it?"

"Stewart's comicbook shop.", everyone replied.

"oh.", she let out as she began down the stairs. "When he sees me in this spectacular costume he may not be able to control himself. I'm glad my boyfriend will be there to protect me."

Leonard rolled his eyes. "I think even Stewart is probably over you after two months after two dates."

"But what if he can't. As a retailer, he handles currency received directly from a random smattering of the public."

Sheldon huffed. "Then he better keep away from you. I'm not contracting any midnight mononucleosis."


End file.
